


Snapshots of Grief

by lpfan503



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-02-24 10:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lpfan503/pseuds/lpfan503
Summary: A collection of loosely related chapters built around real-life events after the passing of Chester Bennington, told from Mike Shinoda's POV. Implied low-key Bennoda.





	1. In the Studio

**Author's Note:**

> Written October 22, 2017, before the Hollywood Bowl Concert

They are coming today. The guys are coming to the house and the studio and you have to be ok, you have to walk up the stairs and walk inside and sit at the controls for the first time and just make it though the first of what seems to be endless rehearsals without… him. Without Chester. It doesn’t seem real, that the five of you have agreed to step out on stage so soon, while the wound is still bleeding, to honor your lost vocalist. Your best friend. It has only been eleven weeks. Eleven of the longest weeks of your life, the worst weeks you can remember.

The first days were a blur, a whirlwind of frantic activity that the pain didn’t seem to break through. There was _business_ to attend to, phone calls to be made, people to speak with… and then… his identification. You knew it was Chester but your heart ached just under the numbness that had covered your body like too much wine. You knew when Talinda grasped your hand and barely breathed the words begging you to go with her, up the stairs to where Chester lay in the bedroom, that you had failed him, failed her. You had to shoulder the burden of seeing him, knowing you would never forget the scene in front of you. You had to do this, for him, for her, for yourself. You had to know it was true. 

You shake your head and take a deep breath and press down on the handle and another memory flashes unbidden, brief and fleeting, Chester’s bright eyes laughing from his seat on the grey couch, ankle crossed over his knee. Chester’s hands on the guitar, stilled as he tipped his chin back and those dark eyes sparkled… 

No, Shinoda. He’s not there, you tell yourself. 

But stepping inside you still feel that rush of anticipation, that he would be there, before the wave of grief takes your breath from your chest for a moment. Scanning the room, seeing the cushions strewn with hundreds of rainbow origami cranes, where he should have been sitting, waiting. You close your eyes and block them out, block out the cracked door to the vocal booth where his headphones lay haphazardly on the music stand, a light layer of dust already visible on them. Block out the scrawl of his handwriting weaving in and out of yours on the new lyric sheets that were already being worked on, despite the newness of the latest album. Block out the coffee cup he’d left on the corner of your workstation just a week before… before… despite your threats to break them over his head if he kept leaving half filled cups around your expensive gear. He knew you’d never do it. Now you can’t bear to move his cup despite the nastiness of the twelve week old coffee inside. 

Open your eyes, you tell yourself. You have to get everything ready. You have to be ok. The guys will be here soon. Your eyes settle again on the cranes. What are you going to do with all these cranes? You have a finished product in mind but you haven’t picked an adhesive yet, and besides, what’s the rush? You have so much time now, without him. Time that is unfilled, silent, aching, and grey. Nothing is the same, will ever be the same, but right now all that matters is that you find somewhere to store one thousand and one origami cranes. 

The crack in the vocal booth door catches your eye again. He never could just shut the door all the way. You used to smile and shake your head and think “damnit, Chaz” when you walked over to shut the door after he’d leave. It’s been cracked open since before. Everything in this room is from before, except the place on the floor you curled up the Saturday evening of his memorial service, the place you’d finally allowed the tears to fall. You’d cried yourself into pieces, burying your face in the hoodie he’d left on the couch, aching for him, for one last moment to look into his eyes and tell him exactly how much he meant to you. Maybe he would have listened. Maybe he would have stayed. Maybe your life would still be different now, eleven weeks later, but in an entirely other way. You’ll never know what he would have said in that moment. You’ll regret not saying it forever.

You start carefully scooping paper cranes up in your hands and depositing them inside the vocal booth. They litter the floor with bright spots of color. Your artist’s eye and lyricist’s brain think for a moment of the metaphor in that visual on the floor. Chester was the bright spot, the color, the magic that made your dream a reality. You keep dropping cranes on the floor until it’s covered, and you think satisfyingly that you’ve put them safely away temporarily. Nobody will be inside the vocal booth today.

You absently push the door closed behind you as you scan the room, and you don’t notice that the weight causes it to stop an inch before it closes. Things look normal. Like before. Except for his hoodie, and you pick it up and close your eyes again, bringing it to your face and inhaling. It smells like you and a sharp pain punches you in the stomach. It’s lost the scent of his cologne, his _Chesterness_ , and you feel like you’ve been robbed of something important, irreplacable. After a few long moments, you open your eyes, brushing the cotton across your cheek before folding the garment and setting it next to your keyboard. 

Before you can scoot the lyrics into your folder, you hear footsteps on the stairs and then there’s Brad, eyes wide and feet bare, his black and grey tank top fitting your mood perfectly. After all, you’ve been wearing a lot of black lately. You know it makes you look exactly as tired as you feel, and you try to care, but you just don’t. Brad sucks in a slow breath as he looks around the studio, and walks in, heading for his guitar in the corner without meeting your eyes. As he picks it up the smallest smile ghosts over his lips and you know he’s enjoying the reunion with the instrument. It’s been eleven weeks.

You sit in your chair and tip your head back, watching and listening as your oldest friend quietly and with practiced ease goes about tuning the guitar, turning his head to one side and listening with his eyes closed. You don’t need to speak, and it’s comforting right now. Being here, in this space, in the studio, seemed like such an impossibility even yesterday. You’re easing in, all of you need space at first, even in each other’s presence.

Brad’s lightly picking through the notes of something he’s been singing in his head since Chester left you, when Rob walks in almost reverently, heading straight for his stripped down set in the corner, placing a hand on the wall beside the kit and leaning his forehead on his bicep. You avert your eyes for a moment, staring out the window beside him, swallowing thickly and willing yourself not to cry. It’s been hard to talk to Rob at all these past weeks, and you know he’s terrified of the upcoming show and how he will make it though without breaking down on stage. You think that at least he doesn’t have to _try to sing_ with those emotions bubbling up inside, and wish for a moment you could play drums more than just a little bit. You wish you could hide behind long hair and an elaborate drum kit instead of standing alone… alone for the first time in twenty years, alone singing words you know in your sleep but that will never sound right without his voice. Alone, in the front, without him to soak up the spotlight and leave just the perfect amount that you’re comfortable with. You feel the panic start to settle in and think there’s no way you can do this and then Dave is there, murmuring ‘good morning’ in a low voice from the door. 

He looks around the room, at Brad still lightly picking out notes, at Rob slowly taking a seat behind the drums, and crosses over to the couch, settling comfortably back into the cushions and facing you, watching, waiting. He zeros in on the vocal booth and you turn your head that direction. 

Chester has left the door open again, you think, before you remember. He’s not here. He’s not gone downstairs for a glass of water, or off to the bathroom, or into the hall to take a phone call. You follow Dave’s gaze and see that his eyes have lit upon the cranes, the mound spilling from inside the vocal booth, but he stays quiet, then looks at you with his heart in his eyes. You swallow and smile, tentatively, and his eyes are warm and understanding in response. 

When Joe arrives with a bucket of chicken, the atmosphere of the room shifts and you feel, for a moment, a sliver of joy to be back in this room with your brothers. It’s greasy and terrible for you and reminds you of your early touring days, and maybe that was what Joe was going for. A different kind of nostalgia. You hear him mention he’d sketched out the design for the race car and you nod, knowing he wants your approval. It leads into a sort of discussion about what you might want to play on the concert, and you all try desperately to cling to the routine of voting on songs to keep your minds off the reality that there can no longer be a tied vote. There will never be a tied vote again, spiraling into hours long negotiating and passionate arguments for or against… there are only five of you now, every song approved has a majority vote.

After a while, you grow weary of the discussion and your head spins with all the implications, all of the _responsibility_ you feel for honoring Chester the way he deserves. While the guys continue in soft voices, your eyes again catch the lyrics you and Chester’s started. You look at how he’s crossed through a line you wrote, rewriting it in his scrawl, and adding a quickly drawn picture of a unicorn cat with wings and a lollipop in the margin. Your eyes prick with tears as you remember his carefree singing backstage on the topic of unicorns and lollipops. You add a leprechaun on a skateboard underneath, and then sigh.

“Take a look at these lyrics… maybe we can turn them into something new for the concert,” you say, sliding Chester’s unicorn cat across the desk to Dave, before turning back to your workstation. 

You pick up the coffee cup and slowly walk down the stairs. Behind you hear the beginnings of something new, something you’ll put your own voice to now. You’ll be ok. You all will.


	2. Looking for an Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This continuation is a brief look at how _Looking for an Answer_ possibly came about. At the tribute concert, Mike said he wrote _Looking for an Answer_ eight days after Chester’s passing, which would have been the Friday before Chester’s service.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written October 30, 2017, post-Hollywood Bowl Concert  
> Disclaimer: This is all in my head except Mike’s lyrics-- those belong to him and LP.

You stand there with your bandmates, looking out over the crowd with tears in your eyes, feeling the emptiness in the space next to you. It’s over, you all made it through, and right now that’s all that matters. You’re ok. They’re ok. You all made it to the end. You sang through Roads Untraveled and you wiped the tears away while the crowd screamed Numb for Chester, and then you celebrated him and missed him and loved him out loud. And now it’s finished. You made it. You’re ok.

You and the guys decided against the new song you and Chester had started, opting instead to keep those lyrics for the next album. You’d been disappointed, but you knew you had something else you could offer. Something more powerful and raw. Something that would expose you and shine a light on your love for Chester more brightly than any interview, LPTV episode, or lyric you’d written ever had before. Something that came out of your personal darkness weeks earlier. 

The night before the memorial service, you’d gone through the motions at dinner, halfway listening to your children chatter at you, pushing food around on your plate under Anna’s distracted gaze. When she offered to get the children ready for bed, you’d simply nodded and taken your plate to the sink, leaving your dinner uneaten next to an unopened bottle of wine. Your eyes had fallen on the bottle right before your children- your babies, your life- came to you for goodnight hugs and kisses, telling you they loved you with faces full of worry. You felt guilty looking into each of their faces, seeing concern written over the innocence, cursing yourself in your head for not faking it better for their sake. As they followed Anna up the stairs, you thought, _fuck it,_ and reached for the bottle opener. 

Looking down into the swirling the merlot you poured, you realize you don’t feel anything. The days have passed in an unbelievable blur, it seems impossible that tomorrow you have to say goodbye. How are you supposed to find words to say out loud? Everything you want to say to Chester is safely locked inside your head, forever now. _I should have said something. I should have told him I loved him. He would have understood. It wouldn’t have changed anything. But he would have known. Maybe he did know. I don’t know._ You close your eyes tightly and will yourself to stop crying before you start. You know if you start now, you won’t make it through tomorrow. The wine glass is empty and you fill it up again, already feeling the numbing warmth radiate from your empty stomach. At least you’re feeling something again. Maybe the wine will shut off your thoughts long enough to catch more than a few hours sleep. Maybe you’ll get lucky and those hours will even be consecutive. You pick up the bottle along with the glass and turn off the kitchen light. 

Almost before you realize it, you’re standing in front of your studio door, glass in one hand, bottle in the other, and your mind screaming at you not to go inside. _I just… I don’t know where else to go. What do I do now? Without him? Where do I go?_ Another swallow from the glass, while you eye the door handle and then turn away with a sigh, heading down the hallway to your art studio. _But I don’t want to paint. I want to drink. And be alone. Alone._

You’ve hardly been alone at all the past 18 years, between the band, Anna, the kids, and Chester. Even on your days off, Chester was there, as regular in your life as putting on socks. You smile halfheartedly, thinking of Chester’s endless shoe collection, and his passion for acquiring more. You feel like you’ve been in every shoe store in every city you’ve toured. It was your payback for the art museums, he’d said, even though you knew he appreciated art as much as you did. Chester toured with more shoes than you had suitcases. The tentative smile fades as you realize, you’ve done your last tour with him. No more teasing him about his shoes, no more art museums, no more local food, no more signing autographs in unlikely places when you were just trying to be regular guys. Everything, just done, over, gone. You shake your head, _it’s too hard. What am I going to say tomorrow? God, Ches, why did you leave me like this? Why didn’t you just call me?_

The heavy curtains you had installed to keep out the natural light when you don’t want it are drawn when you step into the less familiar room, the smell of canvas, acrylic, and pencils hitting your nose. Instead of flipping on the light switch, you walk across the room and pull aside one curtain a few inches, staring out into the back garden. It’s dark. It’s what you want. The darkness feels comforting, it doesn’t want anything from you, doesn’t expect you to respond or smile, it’s endless and empty like your heart. There’s an inviting corner and you slip down to the floor, back against two walls, the words to Roads Untravelled sliding through your head in Chester’s voice- _and you if you need a friend, there’s a seat here alongside me._ You feel him there, you swear you can almost feel his hand covering yours, telling you it’s alright. _I need you to tell me it’s going to be alright. How is it going to be alright? Are you ok now?_ All the things you could have done differently, that you could have not done at all, even, make their way through your mind, and you wonder if there was anything you could have said or done differently. How could you have changed this path you are both on, this path that left you alone and him… free. You lean your head back and tears threaten again, and since you’re barely holding on as it is, you know you can’t cry. _I still just can’t believe this is happening._

Maybe it’s the wine, but suddenly you start to feel again, and it hits you all at once, the ache where your heart is supposed to be. _How can emptiness hurt? What was that guy-who was that guy?- saying to me earlier? I wanted to punch him in the face, trying to tell me you’re in a better place. How can you be in a better place if I’m not with you? That’s not better, Ches, we’re a team, you and me. I want you to be better, I hope it’s better for you where you are. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to keep you here. Now what is keeping me? You were my sun, our sun, the brightness we all orbited. What do we do, now that you’re gone. Are you really gone? What do I do?_

You’ve turned poetic at the bottom of two glasses, and you remember there’s a small keyboard in here, somewhere. You refuse to turn on the light, but feel around the surface of the bottom shelf of your storage area until you feel the familiar smoothness of the keys under your fingers. After a few attempts, you get it plugged in, and you settle down on the floor, bottle to your right, and start picking out chords until something starts to sound like the pain you feel. Before you know it there are words, falling out in whispers, taking on a life of their own. 

_There’s an emptiness tonight_  
_A hole that wasn't there before_  
_And I keep reaching for the light_  
_But I can’t find it anymore…_

You drink straight from the bottle while you work, and before you know it, you’ve written and tweaked the chords and played it so many times you’ve memorized it as the night turned into morning and the wine disappeared. You wonder if Anna had come to find you, or if she’d fallen asleep in the girl’s room. It doesn’t matter, you wanted to be alone with Chester anyway. You can’t stand missing him and you can’t stand the sympathetic look you get from your wife when you say his name. You’ve always said it a lot, but the past eight days, it’s been the only name on your lips. 

You remember how your back ached as you stood up unsteadily, feeling your age for the first time, and walked back over to the crack in the curtain, and sucked in a deep breath. You looked out the window, at the sky turning pink, and a smile touched the corner of your lips. “Morning, Chester,” you’d whispered, “is there sunshine where you are?” _You heard me singing, didn’t you? Everything pink is you, Ches. I wish you were here, singing with me. You’re so much better at that than I am. Your voice is beautiful, why didn’t you believe me when I told you that? Did I say it too much? Did my words lose their meaning for you? You’re beautiful, Chester. Hear me? Beautiful._

You still didn’t know what you were going to say in just a few hours, and now you can’t remember what you’d managed to say at all that day. You held it together at the memorial, same as you did tonight, and when you’re back in the safety of your studio tonight, you’ll let it all go again. Maybe you’ll start working on arranging those origami cranes, still piled in the bottom of the vocal booth, waiting… 

You managed to stand there, alone, behind your keyboard, and pour your soul out for the world, every word cutting you into smaller pieces, Mike Shinoda confetti. Your heart laid bare, videoed and recorded, given away, and yet you’re still here, still alive, still missing him. You’ll always be missing him. You don’t think it will ever go away, the questioning, the constant desire for answers. You wonder how long you’ll have to wait to see him again. 

For now, you smile at the crowd, then look up to the heavens, twisting Chester’s bracelet on your wrist before bringing your hands together in silent prayer, striking his namaste pose before turning to leave. The last thing you see as you walk off the stage is a pink origami crane perched on the end of the walkway.


	3. Interviews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 6, 2017, after the Kerrang! interview was published.

It’s been a week since the show, and you’re barely making it downstairs for breakfast in the morning. The only thing propelling you is knowing your kids are waiting for you, expecting to see you before they head off to school in the morning and you can hide back in your studio. Or your bed. Whichever one feels better at the moment. The concert was harder than you’d expected it to be, and the constant flashes of memories that night had wiped away any progress you’d been making toward healing. _I feel like I’ve lost you all over again, Ches. I thought I was getting better but I’m not. Right now I feel like I’ll never stop missing you. It’s too hard to keep going without you._

You know that you can’t give up. You know that he’d be disappointed if you joined him this soon, despite the aching urge to follow him. You never imagined you’d feel so low that joining him would even be an option, but you admit it’s crossed your mind. You don’t even really know who you are anymore. Knowing that you’ve actually thought of ending this pain scares the hell out of you. It would be the worst sin you could commit, and you try to drag your thoughts out of the depths they’re in, but they keep sucking you down. _You have beautiful children. You have a loyal, loving, thoughtful, gorgeous wife, you have… had… have? an amazing career. But what’s left that matters without him? I barely made it through last Friday without him beside me, how can there be a future for me, for us, now?_

It takes all your energy to turn to the art studio instead of your bedroom, where the comfort of curtained darkness and your bed wait to fan the flames of your self destructive thoughts. You’ve bought the canvas and the special adhesive you wanted for your paper cranes and you decide you might as well try to keep your hands busy. You want to finish something. Everything has been suspended since he left you here alone. 

Alone.

Alone with your family. It doesn’t seem right to consider your self alone in a house of four other people who love you, who count on you, who adore your smiles and look up to your strength. But you feel alone, mired in your all-consuming grief even in their presence, and sometimes especially in hers. Anna was doing everything right, but it was hard to bring joy to your face, and every time you failed to smile she turned away, biting her lip. _She must know. How could she not know, after all this time, after the hell his death has cast me into, after listening to me sing to him on stage last week. God, everyone knows, and nobody can say a word. What is there to say? To everyone, he was just my best friend, my brother, my bandmate, what do you say to someone like me? I’m pathetic. He wasn’t ever even mine._

But he was, and he knew it, and you did too. It had been all about the two of you for years, before Talinda even, especially before Talinda.

It was always you and Chester.

Always.

You’d kissed, once, back when he was divorcing Sam, both of you high as kites, grappling with each others clothes feverishly before you- _you_ \- backed away, eyes wide, apologizing. The next day, when you’d both come down but hadn’t forgotten, you both agreed it could never happen, you could never cross that line, no matter what. You were married. He was too. You were too recognizable to get away with a secret as big as having an affair, and what would it do to the band? That kiss haunted you both until… until he ended it all. Until he gave up on being happy with you. _Is that what did it, Ches? Is that what gave you the final push? I never should have kissed you. We never should have let that follow us around for the rest of our time together, I never should have wanted you that way. It’s my fault, my fault you couldn’t be happy, I know I fucked everything up. I would undo it all in a heartbeat if I could._

You’re gluing cranes onto canvas when there’s a knock on the studio door, and before you can register that someone other than Anna is in the house with you, Joe walks in. You’d think it would be Brad, but as far as you know, he hasn’t gotten out of bed since last Friday. Joe looks distracted, and concerned. He wants to talk about the article, the three-page exclusive interview you’d given just a few weeks ago. It was out, and the internet was on fire with speculations. ‘What were you thinking?’ seems to be center of Joe’s argument, and you nod along, agreeing that the interview combined with the song was too much. There was already so much on social media questioning your relationship with Chester, did you want that to come out now? Now that it didn’t fucking matter? _It doesn’t matter,_ you think, gluing on another crane while Joe’s head threatens to explode from the implications, _nothing matters anymore._

Joe’s decided you’ve wallowed in the self pity enough and it’s doing more damage now than Chester has done to you himself. He forces an agreement from you to take Anna out, to smile and pretend if you have to, to post a few snapshots on your Instagram and look like you’re in love with your wife. You argue that you _are_ in love with your wife and he stares you down until you look away, tears threatening again, knowing you’re lying to yourself and everyone else. Everyone knows, now. Everyone. Despite throwing the disclaimer ‘except my wife’ at the end of your painfully honest story about spending more time with Chester than anyone else in your adult life, you know what everyone is thinking. No fucking way, Mike and Chester, were they together, that way?? _We were together, always, me and him, every time._ The words you spoke echo around in your head, forcing you to acknowledge that you’d finally just put it all out there. Nobody was fooled into thinking you spent more time with Anna than him. Especially after you sang that song last week. It was like the pieces had fallen into place for everyone, the obvious coming together after all these years. 

You fulfill your promise and you and Anna spend the night out, snapping a few selfies and throwing them out on your social media for public viewing. It feels artificial and you think Anna knows what you’re up to, but her pride keeps her silent and once you’re home, she doesn’t try to convince you to come to bed with her. She knows you can’t sleep anymore anyway, so after asking if you want her to stay- you shake your head no- she leaves you alone downstairs in front of the muted tv, staring blankly and feeling the grief overcome you again. You talk to him in your mind, but he never answers. At some point in the night you fall asleep for a while, and your dreams are nothing but memories of the two of you. 

_Always together, me and him, every time._

_Always._

_Me and him._

The next day, when Joe drags you out of the house to ComplexCon you resent him for it, because you have to pretend again. Two days in a row of pretending, why won’t he just leave you alone? You’re so fucking tired of pretending. It’s also tiring knowing that everyone wants to ask about Chester, talk about Chester, hug you because of Chester, and yet they do nothing. It’s the elephant in the room as you slip on virtual reality glasses and smile and go through the motions. You manage to give another interview, to talk about all of the video, the documentation of your band, the scans you have of all the guys- and Chester - without breaking down. The thought of having Chester back, even virtually, calms your mind for a moment, and you smile, imagining what you might say to him if you could have his arm around you again. Joe takes over as you stop with a far away smile in your eyes, and finishes for you, sounding appropriately excited about the new venture. After the interview, he seems satisfied that he’s doing the right thing. He misses Chester too, but of all of you, he seems to be better at compartmentalizing his feelings and moving forward. He’s taking pictures when he tosses you a giant ball of plush flowers with happy faces, and for the first time in a while you genuinely laugh without thinking, instinctively looking to your side for Chester, hearing his laugh in your mind. 

Joe snaps the picture right before reality slams you and you remember he’s gone, your face falling back into tired lines. Later you upload the picture with a ridiculous caption and it has 50,000 likes before you’ve even returned home. _This is what I’ve been reduced to, scattered moments of happiness, and they feel so empty without him there to share it with me. He always made me smile, always worked hard to make me smile, and what did I give him? Did anything I said or did ever even matter? If it mattered, why didn’t he call me? He could have just called me… he could have just called me._

Nobody is home when you arrive, so you head straight upstairs, thinking a shower might be nice after being out all afternoon. The water is heating up as you pull your shirt off from collar, your eyes falling on the chain around your neck. It’s funny nobody has noticed it yet, despite the fact you haven’t worn necklaces in years. They went away in the same year your earrings disappeared, and yet this one, this thin beaded chain has found its home on you now. Everyone saw Chester’s bracelets around your wrist, but nobody has seen this. With one fingertip you touch the cross at the end of the chain, remembering the Christmas you’d given it to him, the Christmas after his divorce was final. The Christmas after the kiss. It was a commitment between the two of you, a commitment to _doing the right thing_ , to honoring your own wife and respecting each other’s boundaries. You remember how you would watch this same cross dance on Chester’s body always in motion, a constant reminder of the path you both had chosen, the path that denied how you both felt. _I still should have told you how much you meant to me, Ches. Despite Anna, Tali, God, whoever else was watching, I should have said it. Now this is all I have left._

Talinda hadn’t even questioned you when you asked for the necklace, and you hadn’t asked if he’d been wearing it. You didn’t want to know. 

_Chester, Chester, Chester._

_What’s next for me?_

You step into the shower, and the water is almost too hot, but you feel like you deserve a little punishment these days. If only you’d done things differently. _If only…_


	4. #BennodaForToday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 12, 2017, after the Twitter hashtag day, #BennodaForToday (really happened!)  
> Also loosely based around this video: https://youtu.be/HkY3eqGBTjo  
> DisclaimerL: Lyrics belong to LP.

You don’t know how long you’ve been laying there with your eyes shut, lost in memories of him, when you hear Anna creep up next to the bed. A cool, gentle hand brushes the hair off of your forehead before the gentlest kiss is placed there by your wife. You stay perfectly still, not ready to face another day, or face her. You think you hear the briefest sigh before she turns and leaves your bedroom, calling for the children to meet her at the front door to begin their walk to school.

It’s Monday, another start to another work week in which you have no plans to be in the studio, the five of you still not ready to commit to continuing this life you’ve built. Rob isn’t even in the state, having taken Erika and leaving for Colorado right after the tribute show. Dave’s checked on you a few times, and Joe’s been around, anxious and ready to get back to work, but Brad is dragging his heels still, angry over everything that has happened and not ready to forgive Chester just yet. You know how that feels. This past week the grief has allowed anger to bubble through, and it has you completely bewildered at times. It feels wrong to be angry at him. You know that if he could take it all back, he would. You know he didn’t think about what this would do to the band, to Talinda, the kids, and to you. If he’d been able to see that, he’d still be here, you know it in your soul.

Another week has gone by and you played the role of Great Husband, planning and executing without flaw a fabulously extravagant, “Rock-Staresque” 40th birthday for your wife. Organizing things- events, parties, tours, records- it’s a strength you’ve always had, your stubbornness for having everything perfect something you pride yourself on, and you’re able to pull off all these things without a hint of pretentiousness. Anna’s party was a success, but now you’re facing down another week with nothing to focus on, nothing to do that means anything, and nobody to really talk to about it. You don’t even want to get out of bed.

So you don’t. You reach for your phone and crack open an eye, the home screen showing more notifications than you will even have time to read. These days you don’t want to anyway. Everything online has been a struggle, and you know the fans mean well, but waking up every morning to thousands of pictures of you and Chester- intimate, beautiful pictures- makes your heart crack just a little bit more. You miss him. They miss him. And every morning, there’s a new link to an interview or concert or podcast that carries your twitter handle, or there’s new tags on your instagram, or some new tribute posted on the band website. You wanted to get away from it all for a while and you put the phone down for a week, planning Anna’s party, but made the mistake of posting pictures of the two of you Saturday night, remembering Joe’s plead to try to get back to normalcy. You’re almost angry that a picture of you and your wife is followed by thousands of comments hoping you’re ok, linking your name with Chester’s. _She’s my wife, can’t people just comment on how beautiful she is, how amazing she is for putting up with me these past four months?_

A new tag catches your eye and you suck in your breath with a sharp pain in your stomach: _#BennodaForToday._ It’s ridiculous, really, the name the fans have assigned to your relationship with Chester, the amazing friendship you share. You’ve known about it since your very first tour, and you and he used to laugh about how crazy it was that everyone analysed your every move, looking for more to your relationship than was there. Even after it became clear to you both that you _were_ more than best friends, you both still tried to deny how things looked from the outside. 

You make the mistake of clicking a twitter notification and are bombarded with pictures of the two of you, video clips, and quotes about soulmates. The sharp pain in your stomach becomes queasiness as you scroll through, and finally click on a video link, bringing his beautiful voice alive in your bedroom. That’s all it takes for the tears to start again, the grief coming in another wave, and you hold the phone, staring into the screen, wishing he would look in the direction of whoever is filming. Wishing for a moment to pretend that he’s with you.

It’s twenty minutes later, and you finally drag yourself from the bed into the bathroom, splashing water on your face and patting it dry, refusing to look in the mirror. You know that all you will see is sadness, tired lines around your eyes and your mouth, heartbreak written all over the weight loss for the world to see. You don’t even care what they think anymore. Pretending is exhausting.

The house is silent when you head downstairs, thinking that maybe you could stomach a cup of coffee, and you pass through the foyer on the way to the kitchen. Your eyes pass over the grand piano, then the giant canvas you hung yesterday. 1,001 rainbow paper cranes, glued down, taking flight, combining Chester’s favorite color (you always thought rainbow as a favorite color was cheating, but now it’s just so very Chester to you) and your unrealized wish for him to return to you. You know your wish will never come true, he’s not coming back, and so this is purely symbolic of all the wishes you had for him throughout your eighteen years together. Wishes for him to be happy, to enjoy this amazing life you had with him, to love you despite everything else, to continue on with you. 

You forget coffee for a moment, making your way over to the piano bench and sitting down, gazing upon your cranes. You hadn’t even asked Anna if it was okay to hang this artwork here, it didn’t cross your mind, this was important to you. It was the first thing you saw when opening the front door of your home. It was Chester, still present in your life.

You run long, slender fingers across the keys silently, wondering how it will feel to play something. You haven’t played much recently, the energy required is more than you seem to have these days. But this morning, something feels different. _I want to feel you close to me, Ches. I miss you so much. I miss hanging out, making tacos, writing lyrics, laughing with you… always laughing with you. I miss your voice, so much, sometimes I hear you in my head. Sometimes I look for you but you aren’t there. Sometimes I swear you’re holding my hand, Chester. Maybe we are soulmates. Maybe you really are here with me now. If I play for you, will you sing for me? Please?_

What comes off your fingers, tentatively at first, are the opening bars to _Pushing Me Away._ You don’t even have to open your eyes for this one. You’d learned long ago that the only way to survive this song on stage with Chester was to keep your eyes closed. You couldn’t look at him. This was _the_ song. It became the song that symbolized your struggle, once you’d realized your feelings for each other. Every stroke on the piano full of sorrow and heartbreak, his voice the same, neither of you able to look at the other until it was over, and right now, in your mind, you can see him, both hands wrapped around the microphone, pouring all the anguish you both felt into every breath, his voice pure and beautiful and amazing, and right now you swear, as your hands move over the keys, you hear him. _I hear you, Ches, I can hear you. I’m so sorry it had to be this way. All the sacrifices we made… and for what, Ches? What was it all for?_

In your mind you hear his voice tremble as he sings.

_The sacrifice of hiding in a lie_  
_The sacrifice is never knowing_  
_Why I never walked away, why I played myself this way_  
_Now I see, your testing me, pushes me away…_

It’s hot tears slipping down your cheeks now, as you listen to him sing, the two of you perfectly in sync with each other the way you always were, even without looking at each other for cues. You knew when to play just from listening to him _breathe_ , everything around the two of you non-existent, the band, the crew, the crowd… it was just the magic of the two of you, the way it’s the two of you now, except it’s not the two of you right now, and you ache for him, hearing his voice in your head but knowing when you open your eyes you are alone, alone in the foyer of your house, not on stage, not with him. _Maybe I’ll just never open my eyes again, Ches. Then you’re always with me._  


The last few notes die off your fingertips and you slump your head down over the piano, burying your face in your hands, sobbing for him, calling his name, and hating yourself for doing so. It’s only a moment until you feel a hand on your shoulder and you turn, wild-eyed, expecting to see him there, telling you it’s all been a mistake, a bad dream, a nightmare beyond comprehension.

It’s Anna.

“What are you doing back?” you cry, embarrassed, hastily wiping away tears and trying to look composed, hating yourself even more than you already do right now when you see the pain in her eyes.

“I forgot the grocery list.” 

Simple, really, the explanation, but you still feel betrayed, as if she intruded on an intimate moment you were sharing with a lover. _You’re a mess, Mike. She’s your wife. You can’t hide from her._

She sits next to you, pulling you close in her arms, and you give in, resting your face against her neck and breathing in the light citrus scent of her shampoo. You still miss Chester. 

“Pushing me away?” she asks, and you nod your head, unable to form more words. “Mike… Mike, I think…” she hesitates, and you dread whatever it is she’s about to say. You don’t want to hear whatever it is, you know it won’t be good. “Honey, I think you need to go _talk_ to someone about all this. You can’t keep bottling it up inside.”

Miserably, you shake your head and stay silent. _No. Nobody will ever understand how I feel. Nobody will ever understand us. We were never lovers but we were lovers, and how do you explain that to anyone? How do I explain this guilt I’m carrying? How can I say out loud that I’m angry with him, when I know I shouldn’t be? No. No way I’m talking to anyone._

She’s rubbing your back and you know it’s supposed to be soothing but all you want is to get away, retreat into the comfort of your studio, cram your body into his hoodie and forget everyone else. 

“Mike… it’s okay, honey.” 

You sniffle, wondering what could possibly be okay right now.

“It’s okay to miss him. I know… I know how close you were.”

This freezes your heart for a moment, and you wonder what exactly that means. _You know? What do you know? That I loved him? That he loved me? That he’s not here anymore because living this lie was just finally too much? You can’t know. You don’t know. Only one person knows now. Just me._

You stand abruptly, and her hand fall helplessly into her lap as she looks up at you, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. You look away, you can’t stand the way she’s making you feel. You don’t want to feel. You want to get away. But you know, if you run right now, she’s got you. She’ll know everything. 

You take a deep breath, hold out your hand, and she takes it tentatively. “Let’s make some coffee,” you say, pulling her up, and she follows you, silent. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”  


You aren’t talking about Chester to anyone, not any time soon, anyway. Why do you need to talk to anyone, when he’s always there in your mind?


	5. Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 16, 2017

You remember the last day of normal life, the last day that your husband was your own. The last day that he belonged only to you and the kids. You were settling back into the routine of having him around the house for a good portion of each day, trying to savor every second before the next tour started, just a week away when you watched his world stop moving. 

The evening before was family game night, working your way through several board games, popcorn, and s’mores before the evening ended with Mike and Otis schooling you and the girls at Pictionary. It really never seemed fair to you to play Pictionary with an artist, but he loved it, and you loved watching your boys feverishly work together to win. Mike had been more attentive than usual, his phone silent, when he usually was texting Chester off and on most of the time he was home. You didn’t give it a second thought, you were just happy he was _paying attention_ and the children were enjoying their dad immensely. Your heart was full. Everyone went to sleep happy, Mike pulling you close to rest your head on his chest in bed as he texted Chester with one hand, ‘See you for the shoot tomorrow, let’s get a bite after.’

You both fell asleep before a response came through. It was the next morning before Mike realized Chester hadn’t texted him back.

It all happened at the same time the next morning, Mike commenting about the lack of response, and the knock at the front door. You left him upstairs, picking out shoes, to answer the door, distressed to see a police officer on the other side. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, Mike coming downstairs to the foyer, you both being given the news at the same time, Mike swaying before he collapsed next to the piano. Your knees trembled but you didn’t fall, you just pressed a hand to your mouth to hold in the screams. He wasn’t out long, and you sank down on the floor next to him, sobbing, and you both clung to each other as the world crumbled. He didn’t cry, he didn’t speak, there was just endless nothing, for hours. You didn’t realize then just how much everything had changed. 

You both stayed busy that first week, Mike with the band and you with Talinda, and when night came and you both finally fell into bed it didn’t bother you that he turned on his side, facing away from you. You both needed sleep. It came faster that way. 

The night before Chester’s memorial service was the first night that Mike didn’t come to bed with you. You put the children to bed and when you returned to where you’d left him in the kitchen, the bottle of wine you’d left on the counter was gone, and so was he. There were only two places he could possibly be that time of night, so back up the stairs you went, straight to the studio. You hesitated for a moment before opening the door. This wasn’t a place you were invited into often, and it felt like you were sneaking into somewhere you shouldn’t as you opened the door a crack to total darkness. You knew he wasn’t there, and you moved down the hall to his art studio.

Peeking inside, you saw him in the barely there light coming through the crack in the curtains, in the corner, eyes closed, almost empty wine glass in hand, half drank bottle at his side. The light cast a pale gray shadow on his face, the sight of his tightly scrunched eyes stabbing your heart. You lingered there, outside the door, fighting with yourself on whether you should go to him or not, watching the struggle cross his face silently. Finally, you left him there, going alone to your shared bedroom. You knew him well enough to know he just wanted to be alone. Before you dropped off to sleep you scrolled through social media, both yours and his, and when you checked his Instagram tags you were confronted with thousands upon thousands of pictures of him with Chester, with the band, condolences, questions. _Maybe it was all too much. Maybe he just needs some silence from it all. Maybe after tomorrow it will be better._ You slept fitfully, and as the sun came up, you realized he’d never come to bed. The sky was pink.

As always, he spoke beautifully at the memorial that morning, his face drawn and haggard, but the aftermath… when it was over, and you were alone back home, he just sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window at the cloudless blue sky, completely unresponsive to you. He finally stood up and walked upstairs to the studio. It was the first time he’d been inside since Chester’s... death… death... such a hard word to think. So final. 

You didn’t follow him at first, knowing he just wanted space, but as the day dragged into dusk, you went to check on him. The door was closed, and you paused, hand on the handle, ready to go inside, when you heard the sobs. It was almost a relief, after so much silence. _He’s crying. Finally. Good, he needs to let it out._ You opened the door and at first you didn’t see him, but then your heart stopped beating as your eyes found him, lying curled on his side next to the couch, clutching a hoodie you recognized as Chester’s, his face buried in the fabric, completely broken. He didn’t hear you as you crossed the room, and when you lay a hand on his shoulder, you felt the flinch. It was the first of many times you felt that flinch, when he had never moved away from you before. It stung your heart a little when he pulled away, wiping his face with the sleeve of the hoodie, eyes unfocused and far away. You sat with him silently for a while, before coaxing him to come to bed. You ended up leaving him on the floor of the studio after he refused to leave the hoodie behind. 

After that night, you watched him spend hours folding paper cranes, large, small, pink, blue, white, yellow, every color of the rainbow. Sometime it was in the family room, but more often you’d find him sitting on the couch in the studio, eyes hazy, not even looking as he methodically folded the paper. You thought maybe it was a good release, a way to pass the endless time he suddenly had on his hands. You watched him engage with the children but seem so far away as he spoke, and you knew he was going through the motions. Every word you spoke to him was soft, patient, gentle, and sometimes he responded, other times he didn’t even blink. 

The rehearsals leading up to the tribute show were excruciating, and you felt him pulling further and further away from you, wrapping himself deep in the planning and executing of a perfect night. Chester was your friend too, and you understood, at least you thought you did. You wanted a perfect tribute too, and you knew that Mike was the perfect person to mastermind the entire thing. You foolishly hoped that when it was over, he’d have made some peace, found some closure, and would come back to you.

That optimism faded slowly as you stood backstage, Mike barely acknowledging you before the show, and you listened to the utter heartbreak and despair in his voice and the catches in his breaths. A sense of bewilderment started slow in your stomach, becoming full out panic when he reached the midpoint of the show and laid a song you’d never heard out bare for the world to hear. Barely breathing, you listened to what amounted to a stranger explain the origins of a new song, and you remembered that exact evening he was speaking of, and the wine... and holding Talinda’s hand, you both listened to your husband’s raw voice sing to Chester, defeated, heartbroken, lost. 

You’d be foolish to not know about ‘Bennoda.’ Social media made it impossible to escape the implications, the pictures, the interviews, the stolen moments you missed while at home, being a mom, a writer, caring for the house, the dogs, sorting the other half of his life. You and Talinda had always dismissed the intimacy suggested by fans, but Mike’s voice that night… it felt like a neon sign, pointing right to their intimacy, and you couldn’t shake the sick feeling that swallowed you for the rest of the evening. When it was over, Mike didn’t fall into your arms, it was Dave who grimly held him up, walked him into the dressing room, and shut the door behind them. You stood, dumbfounded, as Brad stormed angrily past, slamming doors in his wake, not knowing if you should go to Mike or not.

In the end, you and Talinda left together. You didn’t see Mike again until the next morning.

You’ve been watching him slip away, little by little, the past four months. You were silent when he came home one afternoon with two pairs of new pants, a size smaller than he usually wore. You had noticed he wasn’t eating, but when you tried to bring it up he dismissed your concerns. When the interview in Kerrang! came out, you read through it breathlessly and felt your heart stop completely when you read his words, “I spent more time with Chester with anyone in my adult life, except for my wife.” _Yes, you were always together. You and Chester._ You can’t help but feel your mention was just to pacify you, or maybe to pacify the naysayers. Either way, you knew it was true, making it sting just a little bit more than if it had been your imagination at work.

He finally finished with the paper cranes, gluing them all onto a huge canvas that you admit, looks amazing, but you didn’t expect to come home and find it hung in your foyer, behind the piano, right where Mike could see it while playing… as well as everyone else who came to your home. It was now the centerpiece of your entryway. Jealousy crawled over you then, as you stood and looked at his artwork, knowing it was permanent. You’d be looking at it every day for the rest of your life, and the symbolism was not lost on you. You turned away, frustrated with his withdrawal, determined to make him talk to someone. You knew he couldn’t keep it all inside, it was destroying him, and you were not about to let that happen to your family. Not if there was anything you could do about it.

The day after he hung up the paper cranes, he didn’t even come downstairs to pretend to eat breakfast. You decided to let him be until after you went to the grocery store, and then it was time for an intervention. You had to try to get through to him. You didn’t expect to walk in on him, only a half hour after you’d left him, playing the piano. As far as you knew, he hadn’t played since… before. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, you watched his fingers skim over the keys tenderly, his eyes closed, so far away from you and everyone and everything at the moment that he hadn’t heard you come in the back door. His face was peaceful and you thought that you recognized the song, but you weren’t sure, until it slowly faded away, leaving your husband a sobbing wreck at the piano bench, the serenity lost as the music died. You felt your heart breaking all over again and as you started toward him, wanting more than anything to comfort him, you heard Chester’s name escape his lips, full of agony and loss, and sounding more like the calling for a lover than the question for a best friend. The realization settled in your stomach like a rock, but you pushed forward anyway, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

The way he whirled around took you by surprise, the frantic, wild look in his eyes there for only a moment before confusion and embarrassment settled in. 

“What are you doing back?” he’d cried, wiping away tears and trying to look more together than he was.

“I forgot the grocery list.” 

Your simple explanation caused him to shake his head slightly as he tried to catch his breath, and he almost looked annoyed when you sat down next to him, but he gave in as your arms closed around him, his face fell against your neck softly. You felt him inhale slowly, then nod as you asked, “Pushing Me Away?” 

It hurt, your chest hurt and your eyes stung as you started to comprehend, nothing will be the same as it was before. Your husband was in love with his best friend, and now he’s gone and you’re left to try to hold the pieces together. “Mike… Mike, I think…” you hesitated, not sure how to tell him that you knew. Instead, you settled for “honey, I think you need to go _talk_ to someone about all this. You can’t keep bottling it up inside.”

Predictably, he stayed silent, and all you could do was rub his back in the same soothing circles you used on your children when they didn’t feel well. You felt him tense up and almost pull away, but you refused to let him go. You had to do something right. You had to help him. 

“Mike… it’s okay, honey.” You heard him sniffle as you continued, “it’s okay to miss him. I know… I know how close you were.”

You felt him stiffen in your embrace for long moments before he stood, looking down at you with more fire in his eyes than you’d seen in months. You felt the tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, and you started to say that you were sorry when he reached his hand out to you. As you took it, he replied, “let’s make some coffee,” and pulled you up while ending the conversation with, “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

All your conversation earned you was another week of watching your husband work his way closer to becoming a ghost in his own home.

You finally convinced him to take a break with you, to get away without the kids, and you go out exploring, making videos of beaches and waterfalls, and still he seems so far away from you. But you have a plan.

The ride home is mostly silent, you driving for once, Mike staring out the window in silence. You’re not surprised he doesn’t notice that you take a different turn off the 101, and you feel your stomach churn as you drive toward your therapist’s office, where you’ve made an appointment for your husband to speak to someone else in her practice. It’s overdue. You know it’s time to force the issue. You want your husband back.

You stop the car and look over at him, and you see the realization slowly dawn over his face. Before he can speak, you reach over and grab his hand, and tell him, “you’re going in there. To talk about _him_ Mike, you need to do this. You have to start somewhere. I… I can’t just keep watching you be a spectator in your own life. It’s time to try Mike, please, for me…”

Long moments pass as he looks out the passenger window, his hand slack in yours, thoughts locked away, secret from you. _Chester would have known what he’s thinking._ You hate yourself for thinking that way, but you know it’s true that your husband’s best friend knew him better than you do. That’s why you’re here, to try to get him to start letting go and live, to stop feeling guilty that he is still here, to make peace with whatever their relationship was and move forward. You don’t want to know. You only want him to start healing. He can’t keep nursing this pain forever.

Finally, you feel him squeeze your hand and take a deep, shuddering breath. “Ok, Anna. I’ll go.”

He opens the door, and he doesn’t even glance at you as he says, “I love you.”

You make sure he’s through the door of the building before your tears fall.


	6. Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 21, 2017

Looking around the room, you sigh, wondering why you even agreed to this in the first place. The room is made to feel rustic, exposed beams overhead, muted colors, comfortable seating. You feel distinctly uncomfortable, twisting Chester’s bracelet anxiously on your wrist as you halfway pay attention to the therapist introducing herself.

“Mike Shinoda,” you say at the right time, but it’s not followed with a smile the way it used to be. It’s just your name, nothing special. She nods her head and you know that she already knew your name, and she probably knows more about you already than you wish she did. You never thought putting yourself out for the fans would come back to bite you in the ass, but lately you wish you could go back to the dawn of social media and stay the fuck off of it, like Bourdie. If you have to see one more Instagram tag of you and Chester you might actually lose your mind. _Maybe I’ll just delete all of it. Maybe it’s time to just disappear from everything. It would be so much easier._

You stop that line of thought, knowing where it leads these days. To Chester. And what it would take to be with him again. _He doesn’t have to give a fuck what anyone else thinks anymore._ You do, though, and you know that you could never-

“Mr. Shinoda?”

“Mike,” you respond automatically. Even at 40, Mr. Shinoda still makes you think of your dad. 

“Mike,” she says softly, “do you want to start by telling me why you’re here today?”

_No. Actually, I don’t. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to talk to anyone about anything. I want to leave, I want to be at home, in my studio, with my headphones on. I can listen to his voice there. I can close my eyes and forget it all for a little while. I don’t want to talk to you._

“Mike,” she tries again as you stay silent, “let’s start easy. Your wife wanted you to come in for grief counseling. Did she bring you here this evening?”

You just nod your head. Words are a lot of effort.

“She’s worried about you, Mike.”

You nod your head again, then drop your eyes to your fingers on Chester’s bracelet. _Ches, I want to go home. I can’t do this._

“Mike, can you tell me a little about Chester?”

You feel the air freeze in your lungs as she says his name, and you’re unable to exhale for a moment as his joyous face flashes behind your eyes, his head thrown back in the middle of a laugh, his neck exposed, the familiar desire for what you could never have flitting across your body. You exhale heavily and simply respond, “Ches… he’s my best friend.”

She nods sympathetically, and you’re sure she’s noting that you are speaking of him in the present tense. You still haven’t crossed over into a reality where Chester is in the past. He’s still real to you, still present in every moment, and you can’t bring yourself to say he _was_ your best friend. You _used to be_ in love with him. You _wanted_ to leave everything behind for him but couldn’t. 

“You can go on,” she says, using that same soothing voice. You already hate her voice.

“I don’t know what to say. You want to know about Chester? You already know Chester. Everyone knows Chester. We’ve never exactly been off the radar. Chester is everything you’ve seen in interviews and video… he’s joy and light and music and humor and love. He’s everything to me. We’ve been together since 1999, that’s a long time, you know?” You stop, it’s more words than you’ve spoken to a stranger about Chester since before he… before he left you. _You left me, Ches, and now I’m here and I want to go home._

“And what are _you_ , Mike?” She asks the question seriously, and you can’t help but laugh at how stupid it sounds. 

“Me? I’m nothing. I’m nobody. Before Chester I was nobody, and now, now that he’s gone, that’s exactly what I am again. Nobody.” You close your eyes, breathing heavy, wondering why in the world you’ve told a stranger this, your own personal fear of not being good enough on your own. You’ve been _Mike and Chester_ for so long, you don’t even really know who you are anymore. He sauntered into your life, bleached blond hair and lip ring, oversized clothes, quiet sass and dripping with sexiness, and changed everything. You knew it, the moment he opened his mouth in that audition so many years ago, that your life would never be the same again. Chester was the missing piece. 

_Been searching somewhere out there for what’s been missing right here._

Those lyrics weren’t an accident, they were born of a conversation you’d had with Chester last year, alone, sequestered in your studio late at night, as he tried to explain all the dark thoughts that rolled around in his head every day. Your heart ached while he struggled to explain it to you, and you had pulled him close and soothed him… he was important, he was needed, and more importantly, he was worthy of love. From the fans, from his kids, the band, Talinda. From you. He’d seized on your words when you said you loved him in that round about way, searching your eyes for an invitation, one you’d been unable to give him. After all, you had both promised each other. It was to stay buried. But you’d reminded him of all he was to you: the keeper of the secret key to your heart, the only person who brought you uninhibited joy, the amazing person you’d accidentally stumbled upon and then claimed for Linkin Park, for yourself. 

Yes, Chester was the final piece to a puzzle you’d been putting together for years, unable to propel your band into the spotlight on your own, unable to refine and perfect lyrics on your own, unable to sing all the melodies you’d heard in your head with your limited voice. You’d needed Chester and now, now he was gone and who were you anymore? Nobody. You were nobody without him.

“Do you really believe that, Mike?” 

The therapist looked concerned now, as though you’d just confirmed that you, too, were suicidal. Your brain cringed at the word. _]I won’t, I can’t. Chester would hate me forever for giving everything up just to be with him._ Sighing, you look up from the bracelet to meet her eyes squarely. “Yeah, I do. What am I supposed to do now, without him? He was everything, everything to me.”

The realization of what you’ve said hits you like a slap across the face. It’s the first time you’ve referred to Chester as existing in the past aloud, and you sit stunned for a moment, hearing your own words echo in the silence. 

She allows the silence, the time to process what you’ve said. Minutes pass, and you finally add, “I miss him.” Without thinking, you touch your t-shirt and feel his necklace underneath the fabric, warm against your skin. Warm, the way Chester was when you held him. Warm, the way his hands felt wrapped around your waist. Warm, the way his lips felt on yours so many years ago. “We wanted to be together,” you add, hastily, surprised at yourself. You look at this woman, this stranger, who you admit does a good job of not registering any emotion on her face as you begin to speak secrets. “You can’t tell anyone this, right? You have to keep this between us, doctor patient confidentiality, right?” 

You’re anxious for her confirmation and relieved when she nods her head, silent, giving you permission to continue. _I have no idea why I’m telling her about us, Ches. I just… I need to tell someone. I can’t hold all of this inside anymore, I can’t. Please forgive me, I know we promised to never tell anyone. I’m sorry._

“Chester and I, we… we were in love. We’ve been in love for years, it’s crazy to think of it, really. And it’s amazing that nobody knew, but now maybe everyone knows? I mean, with everything that’s gone on since… July… especially the song I wrote… ugh, I’m not sure I should have ever performed that, I just… it hurts so much, you know? And sharing those words with the fans, who love Chester too… well, not the same way I do, but still… it felt right at the time. And now it’s all so confusing.”

“He and I, we just connected, the way you always hear about soulmates in cheesy romance movies clicking. That was us. We were each the missing half to the other. Chester could always, always make me laugh, no matter how stressed out I was. Even when we were coming up on the deadline of _A Thousand Suns_ and everything was a giant clusterfuck, and we were getting nowhere, there was Chester… always Chester, I could always count on him to bring me back from the edge.”

You glance up, and she’s looking at you impassively, her face carefully blank. You don’t know why, but you keep going, words just falling out of your lips, words you’d never spoken to anyone, anyone except Chester.

“We only ever slipped up once. It was just a kiss, well, a couple of kisses, and we both promised it would never happen again. I was already married, and he and Sam were breaking up, and the band was huge by then, it was just too risky. Those feelings never went away, though. And lately… lately they’ve been hovering on the surface again, and I can’t help but wonder if all the deceit was what finally… finally made him want to… take his own life.” You swallow hard, pressing on, you have to get the words out that have been eating your insides. 

“We were in London, before the last show, and Ches and I were in the dressing room, alone… he’d been warming up and I’d just finished with wardrobe, and we were alone, for once, and he came and sat down next to me, and I could tell something was on his mind. We were like that, I could always tell when he was bothered, even when the other guys couldn’t see it.” You close your eyes, summoning his face that night. “He took my hand between his and asked me-” Your voice breaks as you remember the sadness in his eyes, looking into your soul--

_’Mike, do you ever wish we were different?_

_What do you mean, Chester?_

_You and me. Us. Do you ever wish that this would all just go away, that we were nobody, all the fame, everything gone, and we could just be together? Mike? Do you ever think about how it could be different?’_

You pause, your throat constricted, as you remember what you said. He needed you, and you’d replied, _Ches, you know we can’t do this. The what ifs. You know it makes everything harder. We promised._ You had reached out and touched the cross hanging from his neck, the cross you’d placed there more than 10 years ago, the promise to keep your secret. _Remember? We can’t go back, Ches. We just have to keep going._

You’d watched his eyes cloud over, and he’d squeezed your hand. _I’m just so tired, Mike._ You’d mistaken him, assumed he was apologizing for bringing it up, blaming it on tour exhaustion, and you’d hugged him close, kissing his forehead as Brad poked his head in the door and gave you the five minute warning. It was huddle time. You’d stood, pulling Chester up, and his eyes met yours, quietly seeking reassurance, and you’d delivered your typical pre-show confidence building commentary, completely missing the mark that night.

If only you’d said, ‘yes, Chester, I wish all the time that things were different.’ 

Or, ‘yes, Chester, let’s leave the band, let’s leave it all behind.’ 

Or, ‘yes, Chester, I still want you the way I always have. Only you, Ches, I still want you.’ 

Or maybe if you’d just leaned in and finally kissed him again. 

How could you have read him so wrong, the one time it really, truly mattered?

The weight of everything left unsaid and undone between you and Chester is crushing. It feels hard to breathe right now, all the regrets swimming around in your head, and you’re struggling against the current that threatens to pull you under. You’ve been silent for awhile, you realize, remembering the delicate sadness in Chester’s voice that night. The whole tour had felt like that, delicate, on the verge of breaking, his singing truly heartfelt and downright amazing. He’d been on the top of the world. And you had let him down.

“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to do anything since he… since he _died_ , I don’t want to do anything at all. I still talk to him like he’s here. I still hear his voice in my head, I hear his laughter, I feel his presence, his touch. I… I miss him so much. I want to go back, I want to change everything, I want to not be scared of what everyone would think, I want to not give a _fuck_ if it ruined the band, I’m so fucking angry at myself and at him for pushing away how we felt about each other, for being together but not ever really being together, and knowing that we both wanted that but we wouldn’t allow it… I want all that time back, I hate myself for letting what everyone else thought keep us apart. I want him back, I’d do anything to have him back.” You cover your face with both hands and breathe, silently forcing yourself to inhale and exhale, to keep breathing while you wait for the therapist to find her voice. 

“You’re not the reason he took his life, Mike.”

You shake your head, unwilling to let go of the guilt so easily. You should have known. You should have seen the signs, you should have said the right things. It’s your fault, and you know it. Bitterly you tell yourself what you’d told him that night. _We can’t go back. We just have to keep going. I have to keep going._

You pull at the bracelet again, and glance at your watch. You’ve made it the whole hour. It’s more than enough.

Standing, you look at the therapist. “Same time next week?” you ask.

She nods, and for a moment you see the sympathy in her eyes again, before her professional mask comes back down over her eyes. “Call if you need to come back sooner.”

You’re already halfway through the door and you don’t look back. You aren’t even sure you’ll be here again next week. You already feel a little bit lighter, sharing your secret burden. Maybe Anna was right, maybe talking will make you feel better. Maybe she’ll take you by Brad’s on the way home. Maybe it’s time to talk to Brad.


	7. OMLL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written December 4, 2017, prior to the release of _One More Light Live_

Your therapist doesn’t understand, and that’s okay. Brad understood when you told him what you wanted to do. Dave, Rob, and Joe understood. The five of you are all that matter anymore.

Even though you’d gone to talk to Brad after your first appointment, you never did get up the nerve to tell him about you and Chester. Telling a stranger all of your secrets was easier than telling your best friend, and when you’d arrived at Brad’s house that evening, the pinched look of grief on his face made you unable to burden him with more. It reminded you that the entire band, not just you, was still trying to cope, to find a new normal, to let him go.

But you couldn’t even begin to think of letting him go, not yet, anyway. It was days later, before the next appointment, when you had an epiphany. You were sitting in the studio, clicking through YouTube fan videos, grieving for everything you’d lost- your closest friend, your brother, your almost lover, your band as you’d known it for almost twenty years, when you realized there were hours and hours of recorded footage from the summer you hadn’t seen yet.

_I want those recordings. I need them. Maybe something will make sense then, maybe I’ll see what I missed. Maybe I’ll understand, Chester. I so badly want to understand what I did wrong. My therapist keeps telling me I didn’t do anything wrong, but I know, I know I did something._

Two phone calls and twenty-four hours later, there was a box full of labelled video footage from the One More Light World Tour in your hands. It was another twenty-four hours before you screwed up the courage to watch the first one, alone in your studio, door tightly closed. You weren’t prepared to see him so candidly, and the first moments knocked your breath right out of your body, watching the video come to life in the dressing room, the very first thing on screen Chester sitting on the couch, an ankle crossed over a knee, sipping tea. _Where am I? How am I not there with him, there’s only weeks left, and I’m not there._

It’s several minutes before you see yourself, and it shocks you how different your face looks in May, just six months ago. There’s joy in your eyes, where all you see these days is sadness, even when you’re trying to smile. You watch yourself banter back and forth with Chester and Rob, and you find yourself analyzing every glance, every smile, every word, as you watch, and listen, and miss him so much you can’t even breathe. The camera, the ubiquitous camera, captures so many moments between you and Chester that it seems to all be only about you, but once you’re on stage, you realize it’s all about Chester. 

Everything is unedited, and so you watch video after video of one camera angle at a time, Chester filling your computer screen, and day has dragged into night before you realize it. When you glance at the window and realize it’s dark, the shock that runs through your body gives way to an overwhelming fatigue, but you can’t bring yourself to stop watching. _Chester, why didn’t you tell me, you could have told me how much you were hurting. I would have been there, I would have done anything, why didn’t you confide in me?_ The pain is evident on his face, and where were you? Behind a keyboard, behind a guitar, behind a microphone, and even though you were right there, you were so far away. Maybe it’s hindsight that makes it all so clear now, but you can see it and the shame you feel for letting him down is clawing at your insides.

Anna finally forces you to come to bed before midnight, but sleep is evasive as your mind replays everything you’ve watched today, all the songs you’ve watched Chester pour his soul into, the raw suffering you hear in his voice and see on his face. It’s all just too much, and for a few moments you wondered why you had even asked for the videos.

_Chester, I miss you so much. The guys miss you. Talinda, the kids… my kids… everyone… everyone is suffering for you, and it just seems like it’s not getting better. Every day there is something else I’m missing. I love you. We all love you so much. You left me. You left us. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair. Why you, why did it have to be you?_

You’re trying, really trying, not to wake Anna with your tears, but you feel her hand against your back anyway, soothing you, trying to take away the pain, but nothing can stop the rambling in your mind, the things left unsaid, the questions you didn’t ask but should have, the guilty feeling that you should have known. You knew him better than anyone. You should have known how bad it had gotten. _How did I miss the signs?_

It strikes you sometime before two am, still drowning in your own grief, how painful it is even for the fans. You knew they were hurting, but for some reason it just hadn’t clicked until you’d seen them with Chester in the video footage. How much Chester loved interacting with them and they with him, the rapture on their faces when he was near, singing, arm outstretched, grasping their hands, drawing strength from their love. How could someone so loved feel so alone? You don’t think you’ll ever truly understand how much he hurt, even though you tried to listen, and you tried so hard to help, to take it all away. That was the night that you decided to talk to the guys about releasing a live album of the tour. It felt right, it was the first decision that felt right since he died. You needed to give something back to the fans that were lifting all of you up. They were hurting too.

Brad was the most supportive, even offering to help you sort through the recordings and make a list of options to present to the rest of the guys before you went to the label. You threw yourself into the project with the same single-mindedness that you approach most things, spending hours with Brad, comparing live recordings, deciding whether perfection or authenticity was more important. When it came down to it, every track you picked was devastatingly real, haunting even. But then, the entire album was, now that he was gone, the meaning of every song different now that it was before. Maybe that was why he’d loved the album so much, those meanings had always been present in his mind. You’ll never know, and you hate that you can’t ask him. You miss the conversations you’d have with him about the meaning of a lyric he’d written, or how a lyric you’d written spoke to him. Now all of your lyrics speak to him in a different way, and you know he can hear you, you desperately hope that he can hear you. 

There were nights in the creation of the album with Brad that all you did was cry. You came to understand in those slices of time, even though you’d never told Brad your feelings for Chester, he seemed to know anyway. He seemed to understand that you were searching for answers in every performance, every inflection, every altered note that Chester chose, wondering why he sang a line a certain way, if it meant something more than what it sounded like on the surface. In every breath you heard anguish or euphoria, he was either on top of the world or underneath it, and you _hadn’t noticed._ You agonized over every track, playing them over and over again, until Brad laid a hand on your arm and said, “it’s good, Mike. You’ve done a good thing. Stop second guessing yourself. He would have loved it.”

_Would have._ You realized that Brad has moved to the past tense.

When the five of you met up and you played back the tracks you’d chosen, the studio was sickeningly still, everyone motionless and caught up in the delicacy of Chester’s voice, the brokenness with which he sang the songs closer to his suffering, and the energy he poured into others. It felt painfully obvious to all of you that you’d missed the signs in the magic of the moment. ‘Our best tour ever’, he’d claimed. All you can think now is, ‘our last tour ever’.

The label said yes to the band releasing the live album, and you insisted on being present during production and promotion, because every single thing that reflected on Chester was going to be controlled by you, you owed him that much. You chose the artwork, you chose the order of the tracklist, you handled the social media posts yourself. It just didn’t seem to be enough, though, and your mind kept coming back to the videos you’d been working your way through at night, when the family was asleep, caught between laughing and crying with every moment of footage. It was emotionally exhausting, but everything was, these days. Your whole life had turned into one huge pendulum, swinging between your new normal and complete heartbreak so many times in one day that you felt nauseated. Maybe that was normal, and it explained why you couldn’t eat more than a few bites at a time, and you wished that you could just turn back time and take Chester’s hand in the dressing room at the last show and kiss him, just one kiss, just one more time to feel him, to remember what you could have had. If you’d only known that it was the last time, how many things you would have done differently.

The last show. The last huddle. The last song. The last kiss to the crowd. I physically hurt how much you wished you could go back and etch all of those moments into your memory, the emotions you felt, not just what the camera could show you. If you were honest with yourself, you could see the love shining through your eyes every time you looked at Chester, even on stage, especially on stage. _I wish it could just feel pure again. I wish I could love you and not ache for you. I wish you had stayed with me, Ches._

When you told the therapist you were going to make live videos for every song on the live album, you swear you saw her professional mask slip and the sympathy in her eyes. You didn’t want sympathy. You wanted her to understand. You _had_ to do this. You had to honor him, you couldn’t bear to allow his memory to fade, you wanted to keep him close, and sharing him with the world felt almost like he was still there… you could escape and pretend, and you knew it wasn’t healthy but you didn’t care, you needed the distraction. It was another project to start, another way to avoid reality, another way to keep him with you. 

You selected everything you wanted for the first video and production was finished before you even talked to the guys about it. It was almost impossible to watch the completed product, you stopped it several times before you summoned the courage to finish, the pain fresh though the tears were new, and you wondered when you’d stop ripping your own heart to shreds. It was everything you wanted and everything you wished wasn’t true, the love and the loss. You were confirming to the world that Chester was loved, he was special, he was so much more than the frontman of your band, he was everything to so many people. The evidence was in the adoring faces of every single person around him. The evidence was in the way you stubbornly held onto him, refusing to let go, refusing to look forward, refusing to let anyone change your mind. You were going to make these videos, even if they ended up being only for you. You didn’t know if anyone was going to stop you, and you didn’t care. 

In some ways, you knew that you were holding on out of fear of letting go, fear that you’d lose him if you didn’t hurt every day, fear that he would think you didn’t love him the way you said you did if you healed. At least the band understood. At least the five of you had each other, and eventually you’d all move forward, with his memory by your side every step of the way.


	8. New Year's Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlike the rest of this fic, this chapter is based on nothing but my imagination and my hopes for LP in 2018. Cheers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written December 30, 2017

It seemed like a good idea, a New Year’s Eve party. Anna’s eyes had lit up when you suggested having friends over to close out the worst year of your life and ring in 2018. You knew it was because the idea of a party gave her hope that maybe, just maybe, you were starting to get better, to make progress.

Progress in the daily struggle of letting him go. 

All you know is that you’re starting to be able to fake it a little better. Therapy is okay, but it’s not bringing him back, and it seems odd to you that something that is meant to help the whole situation won’t be able to do the one thing you really wish it could- bring him back.

_I know I’m supposed to understand that you’re not coming back, Ches. I’m forty years old. I understand how death works. It just still doesn’t seem like it’s true. I keep expecting to see you the next time I look up, like this has all been a cruel joke. A practical joke you’ve taken too far, and you’ll realize how much you’ve worried me, hurt me, destroyed me, and you’ll apologize and come home and everything will be okay. I keep thinking it’s going to happen that way. It just doesn’t seem right that the world still exists, but you’re no longer here._

You’re not the only one. You see it on Twitter and Instagram everyday, the struggling fans still tagging you in every little thing they post about him. You’re spending less and less time going through your accounts and connecting with your fans, mostly because everything you see, everything you read, just reopens the wounds, and you’re starting to think that maybe the constant connectivity is part of what is wrong with your head. Once the live album came out and you endured the horrific livestream you subjected yourself to, you knew it was time for another break. _What is wrong with people? Why, why would you ask me about bringing a hologram of my best friend on tour? I mean, what the actual fuck was that all about?_ Going live had been a huge mistake. It was far less easy to pretend you were doing better behind the camera than it had been in pictures, and you felt stupid for thinking you should even try to listen to the album with the fans. _You’re smarter than that, Shinoda. You knew better. Dumb, stupid mistake._ You needed a project to take you away from the hours you were spending watching videos of you and him, and the band. A New Year’s Eve party seemed about right.

You ordered balloons and streamers. You let the kids hang up the streamers while you blew up balloons with the helium tank, and you played around with them, wrapping the girls in streamers and tickling Otis, laughing genuinely with your babies, thankful for their bright spirits in your darkness. You helped Anna make all the things on her party food menu, and you brought in cases of champagne for the midnight toast. Just like everything else you’ve done since July 20th, you’ve made sure everything was perfectly executed and extravagant. You wanted everyone to have a good time, even if that kind of happiness was still out of reach for you. You didn’t want everyone else to know just how not okay you still were. As if they didn’t know already. 

You were even a good host, at first, greeting your guests and welcoming them into your home, listening to their delighted exclamations at your paper crane artwork over the piano, eventually guiding them to the bar to make drinks and eat, and be social together. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. As the hours ticked 2017 away, the excitement and noise level seemed to rise exponentially. For everyone but you, and the band. Your anchors in the wild sea of emotion that 2017 had become. _Thank God for the band. I don’t think I could have made it this far without them._

Of course, for the five of you, the evening devolved into this-- you and the guys sitting on the back patio around a fire that was more aesthetic than necessary, quietly drinking beer and trying to keep the conversation off dark subjects. Away from the breathless anticipation of a new start that everyone seemed to be excited about inside your house. The house was full of family, friends, people who had moved on just five months later, and the five of you were together, his empty chair part of your circle, relieved to be away from the need to pretend to celebrate. You all agreed. Despite a promising start, 2017 had been awful. Nobody mentioned 2018 yet. It was impossible to believe he wasn’t there to start a new year with you. For the first time in twenty New Year’s Eve’s, he wasn’t going to offer his predictions for the new year. He wasn’t going to make jokes, his eyes weren’t going to meet yours full of secrets and promises. _Ches, I still miss you. Every single day, I miss you._

You eyes couldn’t help but stray back to his chair every few minutes, and the words being spoken around you seemed to move in and out of your consciousness as your mind filled in the emptiness, and if you squinted just right you could see him, sitting there, his ankle across his knee, mirroring yours, his left hand draped over his leg, light from the fire glinting off his wedding ring. You’re completely distracted from the conversation now, thinking about the last time you sat here with him, just you and him, your conversation moving from the upcoming tour to absolutely nothing important, and you feel the pinch in your heart when you remember that you’ll never talk about nothing with him again. You absently wonder how long you’ll be rocked by the reminders that he’s gone. When will you finally accept that he’s not coming back? When will it stop being a surprise every day? Will you magically wake up in 2018 and it will suddenly be easier? Sighing, you look away from his chair, knowing it won’t be that easy, and his vision fades as you look around the circle at your friends.

Rob was the first one to tread the subject of what 2018 had to offer. He’d had a particularly rough go of things lately. Quiet, shy, private Rob, Rob who had dedicated his life to the band, who never settled down and grounded himself with a family, was struggling without the band to occupy his time. You were grateful when he took your demos of _Looking For an Answer_ to create drum tracks for you to listen to. The others were less enthusiastic about working on new material, especially given the subject, but Rob was not only willing to work on it, he’d labored many hours creating several options for you to work through, and you loved him all the more for it. 

You aren’t sure but you think he just asked everyone’s opinion on the band moving forward, and you pull yourself together and look at him closely. His kind eyes look terrified behind his glasses, as though he can’t believe he just asked that question out loud, and your heart sinks as the silence falls over the five of you. You’re screaming inside for someone to say something, anything, even if this is not the right time for this conversation, but maybe it is the right time, and maybe a decision should be made _right now_ so it can be left in 2017 as well... good or bad.

You’re surprised when all eyes turn to you, though you really shouldn’t be caught off guard by the fact that they want your opinion first. You’re the leader, you always have been. Where Chester had been the face of the band, you had always been in charge behind the scenes, and you see in their eyes that they are looking to you for wisdom, for guidance. You still don’t know how you’ll do it without Chester, but you know that you _must_ do it _for_ Chester, for each of you, because half of your life has been spent dedicated to this amazing machine you call Linkin Park, and it seems a defilement of Chester’s memory to throw it all away. You see hope in Rob’s eyes and a spark of happiness in Dave’s; the beginning of tears in dear Brad’s, who has suffered your particular pain alongside you, as well as his own, without quite understanding why you’ve been so shattered; and you see determination in Joe’s expression as he mentions making Chester proud; and your heart leaps a little in your chest. 

The mood shifts and changes into something happier, and you all start to reminisce about last New Year’s Eve, recalling Chester’s enthusiastic predictions for the new album and the year ahead, and before you know it, you’re all telling stories and laughing over crazy shit Chester said or did throughout the years. It feels good to talk about him freely, with people who understand. For the first time in the months that have passed, nobody seems to be tiptoeing around Chester’s memory, but fully embracing everything that was Chester; love, light, enthusiasm, joy, kindness, silliness, and you can’t even think of all the ways to describe him. Just, Chester. Chester was Chester. There’s nobody else like him, and there never will be. He can be described on his own in one word- his name. The conversation stays light as midnight draws closer, closer to leaving 2017 in the past. You think for the first time, maybe you’re ready. Maybe you can leave the sorrow in 2017 and move forward into a new year without such anxious dread. You’ve all agreed. Linkin Park will continue. It’s a huge weight off your shoulders. 

Tentative plans are made to meet after the new year to work on some new material, and relief washes over you when you realize that everyone is truly excited. It seems that everyone has been waiting for a moment that felt right, a moment when it felt okay commit to going on without him, and this night, this last night of a really horrible year, seems the right time to announce plans for the future, for a new year. When Anna comes outside to bring the five of you champagne flutes, you ask her to snap a picture of you all together, and your smile feels genuine for the first time since Chester left you. 

*****

At 12:01 AM, you post up a picture on Instagram of the five of you by the fire, champagne flutes in hand, toasting 2018 with the caption: Toasting 2018 together, looking forward to starting work on some new material soon. Happy New Year YOU GUYS! #happynewyear2018 #makeChesterproud

You don’t even need to look at it again before you go to bed. You know it has an impossibly enormous amount of likes and comments, and you feel just a little bit lighter tonight. _I love you, Ches. We’re going to keep going, and I know you’re going to be right there with us. Happy New Year. We’ve got this._ With your hand closed around his necklace, you fall into the first peaceful sleep you’ve had in months.


	9. #PostTraumaticEP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written after Mike released Post Traumatic on January 23, 2018.  
> upload date February 18, 2018

It seemed like an innocuous hashtag, the first time you tweeted it. Now you’re sitting here, facing down the possibility of a world wide solo tour, all because of that hashtag. Your grief. Your release. Your music.

It came to you one evening as you lay on the couch in your studio, slowly smoking away the joint you had given up and rolled a half hour earlier. Anna and the kids had gone to see her father and you’d stayed behind to do a little mixing on some music you’d written, songs you’d poured out on the bad days, the days that Chester’s death crippled you. There were times that you felt better and thought that maybe you’d figure out how to be okay without him, and then reality would hit you anew, knocking the breath from your lungs and stinging your eyes with more tears. All the tears. How many tears could you possibly shed for someone who would never return, no matter how much you hoped, bargained, or begged? What would it even feel like to go on without him?

Even though the band had agreed to try to move forward on New Year’s Eve, nothing much had materialized since that night. Chester still crowded into your vision, and there were still occasions that you felt unbalanced, completely unhinged, waiting. Always waiting. 

So there you were, four draws into your peaceful weed, when the sunlight came in the window behind you, creating a bright spot on the wall opposite where you lay. You squinted at it, the beam of light catching the dust in the air, your relaxed and hazy mind seeing glitter in every particle. It was Chester. 

“Hey, Ches,” you whisper, your eyes heavy.

You’re surprised when he answers you back. “Mikey. I needed to see you.”

You struggle up into a sitting position, your eyes trying to focus on the beam of sunlight. You know he’s not really speaking to you but you _hear_ him, just as you do when you’re singing. He’s always there inside your mind. And right now, you swear that you hear his voice, and it’s _not_ in your head. “Ches… God, I miss you. I’ve been writing without you, but the guys…” Your voice chokes off, tears threatening already. “I don’t think they’re ready. But I’m ready, Ches, I _need_ something, anything, I feel like I’m slowly going crazy without you.”

The glitter in the air twists and tumbles, catches on the air from the vent, spinning out of control, the way you feel most days. You watch it, and you wait for the beam of light to say something back to you.

“You have your own songs,” Chester says.

You hesitate. _Your_ songs? Who would want to hear that mess, that diary of your traumatic past several months without your secret love? Hasn’t everyone started moving on without you, leaving you to smoke your weed and drink your whiskey, writing lyrics to songs nobody will ever hear because _it’s not Linkin Park_? Nobody even thinks about Mike Shinoda except to feel tragically sorry that his career is over because Chester is dead.

“Ches… I can’t put that stuff out there for people to listen to… it’s so… personal. It would crush me even more if… nobody cared. I couldn’t bear it, Ches. Those songs are my feelings for you, my pain, my tragedy. God, I miss you. I would give anything to have you back, anything. Tell me, please tell me, what could I have done?” Your voice is desperate but you can’t bring yourself to feel ashamed. He’s talking to you and you want answers. “I can’t get away from it, Ches, the feeling I could have saved you.” 

There’s still glitter in the air, spinning in the sunlight. 

“You have to forgive yourself, Mike. You couldn’t have changed anything.” 

“But… but I wasn’t enough, I could have been enough, Chester!” You drop the joint and you blindly reach for it, swiping tears from your eyes, picking it up before you burn your damn house down. 

“You are enough, Mikey. Release the songs. You’ll be surprised at what happens, I promise you.”

The angle of the sunlight through the window is changing as the sun goes down, and as the beam becomes smaller you become more desperate. You swipe your hand through the air and the glitter dances violently as you grasp at his voice. You can’t put those songs out there. That’s your heart. You think that it might just end you if you put your heart out for the world to hear, and nobody cares. Why would they care? Who are are you without Chester? You don’t even know. Why should they?

“Ches-” you try, but your voice cracks under the weight of the grief you’re still carrying. You can’t continue.

You hear him once more. “I love you, Mike.”

The sunlight is gone and you’re left holding the joint in one hand, the other outstretched in the air in front of you, grasping for glitter that is no longer there. He’s gone again and you’re left with his words resonating in your head. Are you enough? Would anyone care what you’ve been through?

Suddenly you’re angry enough you just scream, “FUCK!” to nobody, because you’re alone. Alone and high and it doesn’t feel any better than it did when you were alone and sober. You draw in another deep lungful and sit back on the couch, your head falling back and tears streaming down your face. You know the music you’ve made isn’t for anyone else, it was only for you, but maybe you _should_ share it. Maybe you’ll put it out on your own label and throw some of the artwork you’ve made into the mix and just see what happens. Maybe you’ll stay off social media when it drops and try not to care if anyone likes it. It’s not for them.

The next morning when you wake up, your limbs feel as heavy as your heart and you pass a hand slowly over your face, pulling at your white undershirt clinging under your chin. You didn’t mean to fall asleep in your studio but it wasn’t the first time. Anna had been there, you deduced, placing a thin blanket over your sleeping body and disposing of the roach. As you fumbled into a sitting position you realized the sunlight was back, in the same place it appeared last night. _Where is my phone?_ You felt around under the blanket until your hand hit the phone, and heavily you stood, making your way to the desk chair. You wanted to capture him in that beam, that ray of light that put the idea in your head that your music was going to be released. 

Sitting in the chair, a series of quick clicks later and the track to a half finished song fills your speakers, and you reverse your phone camera to video that ray of sunlight over your shoulder as you sleepily sing the lyrics. It wasn’t until you were finished that you realized you’d only managed to get half of your face into the frame, but somehow it seemed appropriate. Half of the frame was you, the other half Chester, his light filtering through your window, shattering across the room and lighting glitter along the way.

He didn’t speak to you this morning, and you think maybe it was the weed. He was always there when you smoked, and you finally admit to yourself that’s why you’re smoking more these days. Because you miss him. Now the sun is up and you’re on a mission, you’re going to finish mixing the last of the three songs you’ve recorded and use some of the video you’ve captured at various points on your phone, and you need to call the label and talk to a friend, you need to make sure the guys are all okay with this, and the list of things to do is suddenly long and intense. You’ve imposed a deadline on your project: as soon as possible, before you lose your nerve. 

You’re surprised the label wants to back you on this project, especially after you made it clear this wasn’t about Linkin Park, and this wasn’t about Fort Minor. This was just you, as raw as it could possibly get. You don’t want glossy production, slick videos, or marketing. It’s not about making money. It’s about sharing this pain, because, maybe sharing the pain will make it more bearable. Maybe everyone will leave you the fuck alone when they know, when they can _see_ and _hear_ how you have suffered, more than they can even comprehend. Maybe they will stop waiting and watching as you and the guys work through your grief and your new reality. Maybe this will stop all the questions.

It’s with bitter acceptance that you realize nothing will stop the questions. Who were you kidding? The day your music drops, a mere twelve hours after you announced it was coming, is chaotic. You’re disbelieving when one of the tracks starts trending and before you know it, there are countries showing your music in the top five downloads. When you timidly take to Twitter to see how people are handling your music, you’re overwhelmed at the love and support that you are receiving from fans. It doesn’t seem real, that anyone could possibly understand what you’re going through, what you’ve been through, that any of your words could resonate with them, but they do, and you’re grateful for the initial acceptance of your work. Chester was right, you think with a hint of a smile. He has always been your biggest supporter, he has always given you courage… even now, somehow, he’s able to connect with you. It’s odd how death really hasn’t separated the two of you at all.

You find it interesting that people want to analyze every aspect of your three songs, when you don’t think there is anything really to analyze. It’s all about as straightforward as it comes. You’ve wrestled with the insecurities, the hopelessness, the questions and despair, and it’s all right there in the lyrics, your broken heart and broken voice riding atop smooth electronic tracks that you created. It’s all you, unequivocally, unapologetically _you_ and you aren’t sure why there is a need to ask if your songs mean the end of Linkin Park-- didn’t you get that point across already? You flat out _said_ in Over Again that you don’t want to hear that question again in any of the various forms it’s been asked, but here it is again, journalists and fans alike. When will they just sit back and let you guys heal? Are these three tracks not enough to show you’re all still in pain, lost, confused? It’s about grief, it’s not about the band breaking up. What is wrong with everyone? 

The only question about Chester that didn’t tear your soul into tinier pieces was when you were asked if Chester’s vocals were in the background of Over Again. You even smiled as you tweeted the answer to that question, knowing that over the years together you had started to sound more and more like him as you sang more complicated backups… and you always, always hear him in your head when you sing. Your voice and his voice are one voice in your mind. Channelling your inner Chester is so fucking easy to do these days. It happens so naturally and without a single thought that sometimes even _you_ are lost enough to think that it’s Chester singing your backup in these new songs, and on a base level you understand that the fans hear him, too. They will always hear Chester with you. He didn’t define you, still doesn’t define you, but he’s part of you, and he will always be a part of you. 

It’s frustrating and uplifting at the same time, as you realize signing on to Summer Sonic in Japan this summer has created the idea that you’re ready to get back out there and perform again. Maybe you are. There are so many, _too many_ , maybes these days. And now the fans have started a movement to get you back out there, and you aren’t even sure that’s what you want. You didn’t think they’d take you so seriously when you told them all on Instagram Live that you weren’t sure anyone would want to see you perform without Chester, but your fans-- _the band’s fans_ \-- are fucking loyal and apparently there was no way they were going to let you feel that way. Now you’re looking at your Twitter, where #PostTraumaticEP has morphed into #PostTraumaticTour, and you can’t tell if you are excited or scared about the possibilities. You feel guilty for being excited that this could be the next step. You feel thankful that Dave seems ready to move on with you when he offers to play bass for you at Summer Sonic, and in the same breath you’re crushed that the rest of the guys are still hesitant, still pulling back and away, even despite the band meetings you’ve had recently.

It’s still hard to wrap your head around Linkin Park without Chester, but you’re starting to feel more confident that the fans still want you around, and you know deep down that you aren’t finished yet, that despite your creative time with Chester being cut short, you still have creativity in your blood. You’ve all come too far to be done now, and you just have to keep plugging along, working hard at your music and your art, taking those first steps toward starting again while praying that the others will catch up. After all, you’ve always been the leader, so maybe they’re all just as scared as you are, insecure as to how you’ll be received as one member short, always… always one sixth missing, your heart forever broken.

Every morning you spend in your studio is a morning that you watch the glitter dance across the sunbeam that is Chester, and you know that even though he’s not physically there with you, he’s there. He’s always there, and he was right about your music, and you desperately hope that you won’t let him down if this tour happens. And as you scroll through thousands of mentions, you have a feeling there’s no way out now.


	10. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday, Chester. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written March 19, 2018

You sit there, twirling the little bronze pin between your thumb and forefinger, stopping occasionally to look at the center of the hexagon.

The hexagon. Six sides. Six equals. Six friends. Six. His signature in his elegant scrawl across the center. This touchstone you can wear on any jacket, any suit, anything you please, this declaration that he once belonged to you. Well, to you and the five hundred other people who have one. Are you any more special than any of the rest of them? Even though a google search of your name turns up an equal amount of pictures of _him_ , are you any more special than any of the others?

It’s thoughts like that which sent you to Talinda’s door, the little bronze pin in your hands, to try to ignore the sadness that has pulled her skin tight around grief-stricken eyes, to ask her for her blessing to replicate this pin for the fans. No, not in bronze, not to diminish the meaning behind those five hundred she had made, but another color, perhaps, to share him a little bit more with everyone who loves him. Loved him? No, loves. There is no past-tense when it comes to love for Chester, yours or otherwise. Love is only in the present.

Like everything else you have done to honor his memory, you carefully choose the date to announce that you’ve once again done what most would not do- really, truly listen to your fans. The announcement falls on the day before his birthday. Forty-two. He would have been forty-two.

Tears well up in your eyes as you realize on your next birthday you will see a year that he never saw. It still doesn’t seem real, some days. There are moments, right after you wake up, that you forget for a moment. There are seconds of peace and then the reality slams into you again, leaving you rigid with grief. It honestly has numbed a bit, the pain you feel during the day, but those moments, right after you wake up, when your mind has relaxed to the point of forgetfulness… those are the hard moments.

It must be why, on this Monday night, the last day of a year bearing a number in which he was alive, that you can’t fall asleep. It’s one more milestone to check off a growing list of moments you must endure to move on with your life. One more day you must say goodbye to him. One more day to hold yourself together in the public eye, for fear that anyone seeing you fall apart might hurt them even more. You’ve never been so aware of your actions than you have since he passed.

He wouldn’t want you to be laying here in the dark, early morning hours, mourning him harder than the day before simply because it was the day he was unlucky enough to be born. You shake your head. You can almost hear his self-deprecating way of speaking about himself in your head. He never saw it, never understood, what it was that everyone else seemed to see. He never quite grasped just how many people adored his smile, his laugh, his voice. God, his voice. You still hear him, even if it has been months. How many now? You always seem to get it wrong. Eight. Eight months since you’ve heard his voice, seen his eyes, touched his skin. It seems impossible.

You stop fighting it and just get out of bed before you wake Anna. You don’t think you can hold it together in the studio, so you simply go outside and sit on the porch, staring up at the moon, at the stars, and a verse pops into your head, his voice and a song you haven’t thought of in years. Is he looking down on you now? Do you even believe in Heaven, after the Hell you’ve been cast into the past eight months? 

Of course you do. You know Heaven. Heaven was when he was with you. Heaven was those moments that time stopped when you looked at each other, Heaven was when your voices blended in perfect harmony, Heaven was that one sweet kiss. He’s there, written in the stars of your universe, waiting for you. You hate to keep him waiting, but you aren’t finished here, not by a long shot. You have children to raise and a wife to love, a band to hold together and fans to tend. You have love here, and so he will have to wait. You will see numbers pass by that he never breathed, and every year he will be farther away, but still waiting.

The sun dawns on a new day, his forty-second birthday, and you aren’t surprised. The sky is pink.

Long after that color, _his pink hello_ , melted away into the warm LA morning, you sit on the porch, thinking. What will you do today? What will honor him the way you intend? He gave you so much with his life, and you’ve vowed to honor him in every way possible for the rest of yours. It is, after all, the least you can do. You wish again, for the thousandth time, that you could have done more.

A quick tweet out, thousands of replies within seconds. An instagram post of your hand and Anna’s: “I am the change.” The likes are already over 100,000 in two hours. You scroll through the pictures on your phone, your private stash of pictures and snippets of videos of the band, of you, of him, of the two of you together, and let the memories cascade over you until you’re exhausted. You can’t cry anymore today. He wouldn’t want that, he wouldn’t. You remind yourself, it’s a birthday. It’s a day for celebration, to thank whatever higher power exists that Chester Bennington was given into this world. It’s not a day to mourn, it can’t be. How can you mourn such a rare and exquisite creature?

You don’t have to ask Anna twice to go get ice cream with you, and you’re grateful. She understands you.

Before you can change your mind, you’re off to Santa Monica, and the two of you walk down the beach, hand in hand, ice cream cones dripping in the warm spring sunshine as you lick and laugh and love. The ocean is soothing, the ice cream is joyful, and your heart feels lighter. The sparkle in Anna’s eyes reinforces the idea you’re doing this right. You’re celebrating, the way this day is meant to be. 

“Want to go to Disney?” she asks, and who are you to say no? You can imagine his smile as though he were right next to you, and you take that smile with you and spend the rest of the day just enjoying your life and your wife, before heading home as the sun starts to sink lower and lower in the sky.

You’re driving absentmindedly, your thoughts curiously blank for the first time in a long while, and you hear Anna sigh. Keeping your eyes carefully on the road, you ask what’s on her mind.

“Chester,” she replies, and your heart sinks a little. Gone is the carefree feeling you had moments earlier.

“What about Ches?” you ask, not sure if you want to hear the answer.

“He would have loved today… the beach, the rides, the sun… it’s hard not to imagine him still here, you know?” You hear her laugh quietly, nervously, before she says, “of course you know.”

Eyes on the road, you nod your head, afraid to speak, terrified of the lump in your throat. You’re getting better. The therapy is going well and you can drag yourself out of the bed on most days, you look her in the eyes and say I love you... so why does it feel like your heart is about to break all over again, right now, as your wife talks about _him_?

She reaches for your hand and you take hers willingly. “I’m proud of you, Mike.” As you open your mouth to protest, she cuts you off. “You did it yourself, you decided to celebrate today instead of letting it drown you… you’re making progress.” 

You still can’t look at her, but you understand what she’s saying. You’re coming back to her. The EP, the interview, the spontaneous meet-up with the fans… you’re starting to take your life back. You’re starting to find the balance between loving him and missing him, and living the rest of your life. It won’t ever be what you imagined it to be eight months ago, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s hopeless. It’s going to be what you make of it, and you’re starting to make something meaningful of your life again. You all have a slightly different purpose than you did eight months ago, and it’s just been recently that you have recognized that as not being a bad thing. 

Now that you’re home and the adrenaline is wearing off, the lack of sleep from the night before is catching up with you. With exhaustion heavy in your bones you shower quickly and climb into bed. You can’t help but take one quick look at your social media, the tears and smiles pricking at your heart simultaneously as you scroll picture after picture of his beautiful, smiling face. The smile that so many adored.

He is so loved.

You add your picture, a favorite one you’ve held close to your heart for years, a picture of a picture taken back when he was blonde and your hair was red, when you didn’t quite know how to harmonize and sharing the stage with him was awkward at times. Back when you both were still trying to figure it all out, but had already figured out that you could rely on each other. It was just the beginning. You smile at your boyish faces, at your total naivety… if only you had know how it would all unfold. That one day his voice would be one of the most famous in the world… would you have changed anything? Would it have made a difference?

You shake your head. Those thoughts never lead anywhere good, you know that now. This day was a celebration, don’t ruin it, you admonish yourself. Celebrate. Celebrate what you had, the amount of time he was in your life. Celebrate… celebrate… celebrate...

And so all you type is ‘Happy Birthday, @chesterbe”, and force yourself to be satisfied that wherever he is, he knows now how much he is loved, how much you love him.


	11. You're Fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written May 6, 2018

You’re just sitting there, forehead in your hands and elbows on your desk, staring down at the latest tour itinerary and thinking about which shoes you want to take to Japan, which shoes to wear this Saturday, when it happens again. It’s been a while, but suddenly everything is hazy, blurry, fuzzy in the edges, and you know you’re crying when you see a teardrop hit the paper in slow motion. 

For such a long time after he left you, everything was in slow motion. Sounds, colors, movement… people… it was all underwater, until one day you surfaced, the pain of losing him sharp again as the world came into focus. Now you carry that pain around in the background, just underneath the surface, and you manage to keep it carefully concealed in interviews even though it’s the elephant in the room. You’ve tried to address it head on but it makes people uncomfortable, so you chatter on about your new songs and videos, and your excitement over the upcoming tour that pieced together mostly by accident. It hasn’t hit you this hard in weeks, and here you are, thinking about what shoes you should wear at the Identity LA performance when you’re underwater again, struggling to breathe, fighting to compartmentalize the grief back to its safe zone. It’s been buried underneath layers of popular new songs, merchandise releases and artwork. It’s grief that is now demanding to be recognized because Chester… _your Chester_ , loved his shoes almost as much as he loved you.

You stand up and breathe, sucking in air while desperately talking yourself down, wiping your hands across your eyes as you make your way out the door to the studio balcony. It’s May, and July is drawing closer every day, and it seems impossible that it’s almost been a year. Just a year ago, he sat with you on this same balcony and watched the moon rise while you discussed tour plans and the new album, while he explained which shoes he _needed_ to take to Europe, while you laughed with your whole body at his dramatic exposition. 

Now you’re standing here, alone, discussing tour plans and your new album with yourself. 

_You’re fine_ , you tell yourself. He’s not here, but you are, and you have to be okay. You’ve said it to everyone who has asked, you’ve only let on through music that everything may not be as it seems on the surface. The crushing weight of being alone won’t be the thing that finally breaks you, not after everything else that has happened. _You can do this_ , you think. Because you’re fine. 

You’ve said repeatedly that you needed to do this alone, but you would rather the guys have been with you, now that push comes to shove. But you’re so far in now, and you’ve gone on the record so many times saying that this tour would be a one-man show that you can’t see a way out. And it still didn’t hit you until just now, until you wondered which shoes you wanted to wear to Identity LA, that you really and truly were doing this alone. Somehow, there has been this denial in the back of your head, some voice telling you that Chester would be there too. Somehow you’ve managed to avoid dealing with it all while lost in the distraction of marketing and merchandise, interviews and social media updates. Maybe Brad was right. Maybe this is all just a distraction from how you’re really feeling.

But is it, though? Haven’t you been using the music and the art to cope with how you feel? You’re doing _all the right things._ You get out of bed, you eat, your trim your beard, you play with the children. You kiss your wife. You talk to the guys and you support them, even when they aren’t yet ready to make music again. You go out in public and you smile. You’ve managed to talk about Chester in the past tense. You see your therapist, you smoke less weed. You’re fine. _You_ think you’re fine. 

It surprises you to look down and see that your hands are shaking, and your first thought is that getting high would take the edge off, but you promised Anna you would cut back, and you haven’t smoked a joint since before Chester’s birthday. This is the first time in weeks you think you might give in, especially since you’re suddenly missing him so much and when you’re high, when you’re on that different level of existence, you feel closer to him. You can talk to him, you can hear him, you can feel him. Just one joint, to calm you a little, to bring him back for a moment. It wouldn’t be the worst thing you’ve ever done to cope. But… no… you can’t. Because, really… you’re fine.

After a few minutes of standing in the sunshine, you can feel your heartbeat start to slow a little and you know the worst is passing. Maybe you can keep your word to Anna after all. Your hand reaches up to pat at the cross underneath your shirt, at Chester’s necklace hidden there. After all these months of it lying next to your heart, clasped around your neck the way it used to be around Chester’s, the chain was finally spotted during your Instagram story from the art exhibition you attended a few nights ago. There was a mention of it on Twitter the next day, and you just let it go. The fans don’t have to know everything. They don’t even know that you were the one who gave him the necklace in the first place. They don’t know the significance, the story behind it. The secrets. You’re probably saying too much through your music right now anyway, no need to stoke the fire. You’ll be loyal to him until the end. Those secrets will die with you.

You know you have to get this all under control, back inside the small, tidy box in your mind that holds all your memories of him. A rueful laugh escapes your lips when you think it could possibly be a small box. There’s no way any small part of your mind could contain twenty years worth of memories. It’s more likely that your entire being is consumed with memories, and one small, tidy part of your mind that’s left clean, that sees only the future and not the past, is the part that keeps you functioning day to day. Would everyone be crushed if they knew it was all a lie? Or would they be relieved, in a way, to know that you’re powering through life right now on sheer willpower? On the simple determination to not slip so far down into the depths of your misery that you never surface again? Would everyone simply look at each other and whisper, “see? I told you. He’s not fine.”

“You’re fine,” you whisper to yourself, the cross a warm kiss against your skin. For a moment you indulge yourself, you imagine his arm around your back, his lips in your hair, his soft, appreciative smile at the end of your set. You lose yourself in the thought that he’s there, watching you do it all on your own, pushing away the fact that in reality, your insides are all screaming still that there is no way you can do it alone. You lose yourself in the fantasy that you two belonged to each other as wholly and completely as you both secretly desired, and the picture painted in your own mind of what that bliss looks like is so real, so tangible in that moment that you feel buoyant for a second. You’re no longer drowning or suffocating but floating, flying, alive. Is this what it will feel like to be up on stage again? Which will it be? The air or the sea?

Breathe in, breathe out, the scent of tender new blooms on the back garden’s pink bougainvillea filling your lungs instead of ocean air. You desperately hope it will be the air, that baring your heart on stage will feel like soaring instead of sinking, that you will feel love for who is still alive instead of heartbreak over who isn’t. You’re so terrified that it will never be about you but only about him that you have considered canceling every performance- but ultimately, this is something you have to do. And even though you have to do it on your own, maybe it will only serve to prove, to yourself, to the guys, to everyone, that you have worth on your own. You aren’t trying to leave Chester behind, but you _are_ trying to find a new identity, at forty-one years old-- and that’s what makes something as small as choosing footwear such a huge ordeal. Every decision feels like a make it or break it moment.

“You’re fine,” you whisper again, a mantra you are certain you will repeat over and over again in the days to come. Your hands have stopped shaking, and you’ve managed to put a lid on the box. You step inside, pick up your itinerary, and head for your closet to pick out shoes.


	12. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written July 11, 2018

Everyone is asleep. You’ve been waiting for Anna’s breathing to smooth out, laying perfectly still beside her and trying to match your breaths to hers so she won’t lay there worrying about you while your mind is racing. You can’t stay in the bed. You have to get up, the pull to talk to him is too strong. It’s almost the 20th and you can’t fucking sleep, you have to talk to Chester. You can feel him, he’s there. Waiting for you. 

It’s inevitable now, that you feel him with you, and you’ve accepted that it will always be so. In whatever plane of existence he’s in - because you’re neither a believer or a disbeliever, as you have been so adamantly explaining the past few weeks - he’s waiting for you. You don’t know what you believe, but you hope that when you leave this existence that you end up where ever he is now. It’s hard to believe that anything might separate you eternally. 

Somehow you managed to get everyone to laugh off the notion of ghosts when you created that sock puppet video, but anyone that paid careful attention to the tone of your voice as you explained yourself at the live debut of the song heard what you were trying to cover. Trying to hide the fact that you do so desperately believe you can talk to Chester. You knew you were walking a fine line when you mentioned that you still talk to him in that one interview… there was no need to tell anyone that he talks back. Of course, he only talks back when you’re high, or asleep… but no need to mention any of that to anyone, not your therapist, not your wife, and certainly not the public. Absolutely no need to worry Anna any more than she already does.

You slide out of bed, pulling your t-shirt on and smoothing the bottom over your pajama pants. Anna didn’t stir as you crept out the bedroom door in the dark and to your studio. It’s one of the places you still feel him the most... it was like he lingered in the space. He always feels strongest to you in places you spent most of your time together.

You know that people mean well when you meet them, and they say things like “he’ll always be with you” and “Chester’s so proud of you right now.” It’s easy to smile and nod, to say thank you and not _really_ say anything, because you know better than they do how he feels. You talk to him every single day... of course you know he’s proud of you. After all, he was the one who encouraged you to release the music in the first place. If they only knew that. It’s your secret.

Sometimes you talk to him in your head, sometimes it’s aloud, sometimes he answers you and sometimes you imagine his answers, but you know so well how he would have responded that you can hear him in your head - the tone he would have used, the inflections, and the expression on his face. Over the last year it’s gone from heart-wrenching to comforting. There’s been a lot of growth from the darkness, from writing barely concealed love songs while drunk on the floor of your art studio, to mixing smooth beats over angry rap lyrics while your mind moves at lightning speed. From barely surviving the tribute show to crowd surfing in New York City. From avoiding interviews to three or more in a single day. It’s been a long, and at times, weary road. But you’re making it. And talking with Chester about it tonight feels necessary. You feel his energy, he wants to hear all about it, and you’ve never been one to deny him anything he wanted. 

You flick on the lamp on the desk and look over the room, the bits of shadow in the corner by the drums and the blanket over the sofa, the shades drawn and the vocal booth closed. Without really thinking about it, you make your way over to the door that opens onto the balcony, and you stand there, brushing aside the shades to look outside at the barely illuminated back garden. You take a minute to think about the lunar cycle, trying to remember if the sliver of moon you are seeing is waxing or waning. It’s one of those things that really doesn’t matter, but somehow seems critically important as you stand looking outside. 

Before long you find yourself with your palm pressed to the glass, your forehead resting on that same hand with your eyes closed as you breathe in, breathe out… slowly, the way your therapist taught you to do a few months ago when the anxiety was at its highest. 

You’re getting better at controlling those out of control feelings, and the self-deprecating thoughts that came along with them. Those first shows, the two in May and the handful in June, have helped with that, too. It helped you to make a connection with the fans, to feel their energy and love and support, when you still weren’t even sure anyone would want to hear your music. It’s been an incredible rush to work through the fear of doing it all on your own and realize that you could, in fact, make it happen.

It doesn’t diminish the fact that you miss him so much sometimes that you can’t breathe, that memories of time spent together in whatever city you’re in flash through your mind. He’s always there. 

The joy of that connection with the fans doesn’t stop you from placing everything on hold, from honoring his memory every performance, even when the tears threaten to overtake you. It doesn’t stop you from reaching your hand toward the sky, to wherever he is... to pressing your palms together in prayer as you ask for strength to continue. So far every crowd has held you up and sang his lines when you couldn’t. They’re healing the brokenness inside of you, pulling you along and creating your new normal, this new life you never wanted but that had to be… without him. 

“Hey, Ches,” you whisper to the glass, “it’s been a crazy few weeks. All the press and the travel, and I’m still getting used to you not being there with me. It’s so strange to get on the plane without you…” You stop and look outside, straining to see what’s making shadows that jump and twirl across your lawn. It must just be the breeze. 

“When I decided to go for it with this album, that time we talked and you convinced me to release the songs, I didn’t really think about how tiring all of the interviews would be. You know? Now I’m the one talking the whole time. It’s funny... I never realized how little I actually talked until it was just me. I never realized how much I listened to you, and smiled along, and just threw my two cents in every once in a while. I’m getting more comfortable with the interviews, even making some jokes now… as long as the interviewer has an idea of who Linkin Park is, and who I am and what this album represents… we tend to get on okay. It’s when they ask stupid questions that I can’t help myself. Sometimes I get a little sharp, but I don’t know why they feel like harassing me over the band every single interview.”

“The more I interview the more I find things slipping out, Ches, and I don’t know if that’s because I just don’t care anymore, or if I just can’t keep up. Anna thinks I might be over-doing it, and I don’t know how to explain to her I _have_ to do this. It’s what’s getting me out of bed in the morning. I’m going to be okay, but I have to do this right now.”

You sigh and turn away from the window, picking up the blanket from the sofa and dropping down in Chester’s place. As you pull the blanket around you, your eyes creep slowly over all the guy’s things; guitars, basses, drums, all the electronics… and Chester’s hoodie, still there by the mixing console. Now you’re talking to the hoodie, your eyes focused again.

“I don’t know what to say about the band anymore, Ches. There’s nothing new, anyway… I think Dave is ready to go, and Joe, too. Especially Joe, he’s gotten restless lately, and he’s doing a show this summer, so I think he’s ready to get back on stage. Dave’s got his podcast but he’s always asking if I need a bass player for my shows, and I’m getting close to saying, c’mon then.” You smile half-heartedly as you go on. “I really miss the guys, Ches. I don’t know what to say anymore when people ask if we’re gonna go on without you. I want us to, I think that we can. Brad is being a hard sell right now, and I know it’s just because he’s still in denial.” You put a hand over your chest and shake your head. “He thinks _I’m_ the one in denial, but I’m the one putting myself out there, so I don’t know what he’s on about. And Robbie… he’s good, Ches, just quiet. He looked up to you so much…”

You close your eyes as memories flood over you, all the good times the six of you have shared. “We all admire you, Chester, it’s what makes it so hard to think about going on. You’re irreplaceable, and I’d never want to try. It’s hard enough to sing our songs without you, there’s no way I’m singing them with anyone else. I wrote those for you, you know? It’s probably best to let them rest... rest with you. I let it slip in an interview the other day that I still have your voice in my in-ears… I never should have said that. Honestly, even if you weren’t there, I’d still hear you anyway, but somehow it just seems so much… _more_... to let everyone know how much I depend on you still.” You take another deep breath, this one a little less comforting, your chest growing tight with the grief again. 

It comes softly now, your voice, as you continue to talk to him. “You’re better now, right? That’s the one thing I keep holding on to, that your pain is finally gone.” You open your eyes and they fix onto his hoodie before you glance around the room and then down at your hands. “I know you are, you _must_ be, and I’m so glad. I tried to make it better, Ches, I just never could. And I’m sorry.” 

There’s only silence, and your breathing, in response. 

You knew there would be only silence tonight, but it still shocks you from time to time that he won’t ever respond to you again, that any response you get is in dreams or an altered state of reality. But you feel the reassuring squeeze of his hand on your shoulder, as clearly as if he were sitting next to you, and in that moment you know he’s okay. You have to believe it in order to go on with your own life. You must.

You take yet another deep breath, congratulating yourself for making it so far without breaking down, and blow it out with a faint smile. “Well… what else, Ches? Oh! What did you think of me jumping off into the crowd the other night? I’m sure Jim and Ed were just thrilled, I remember how they use to get on you just for standing on the barriers. And I just dived into the fans!” You pause, the grin widening on your face as you giggle softly. “I know that was crazy, but it felt so right. I felt like we were twenty-five again, the whole world spread at our feet. I felt like you were with me, Ches, and it felt good to let go. I felt so… alive.” 

When you speak that word your eyes flit around the room again. “Chester, I know why you always needed to go down in the crowd, why you wanted to connect with them, I get it now. I need it too, I need to know I’m still here. I need to feel their hands on me and share the mic with them and _feel_ things, because… I’ve just been so detached from everything for so long, since you’ve been gone. I don’t want to go through the rest of my life feeling that way.” You sigh and your smile turns sad. “I know you know what I mean more than anyone about that.” 

You can’t help it, you walk over to your workspace and pick up his hoodie, looking it over. It’s long since lost his scent, and you remember the day you realized it no longer smelled like Chester, how you slid it on and sat on the sofa, wrapped in the only article of clothing of his you had and cried your eyes out. Now you slide it on just like you did for days and days as you wrote your album. It’s nothing like having his arms around you, but there’s a degree of comfort in it that you are grateful for. 

You drop your face into your arms, rubbing your cheek against the cotton. “I love you, Ches, and I know that you know I haven’t forgotten you, I won’t forget you. No matter what anyone says. You’re with me all the time. But I’ve got to get better, too. I know you understand, I know you do.” You bite down on your bottom lip, and slide the hoodie back off, carefully zipping and folding it. “Don’t stop coming around, Ches, don’t give up on me.”

With a deep breath you open the bottom drawer of the desk, the one where you put away all of the unfinished lyrics the two of you were working on, Chester’s notepad, and his favorite pen. The drawer that holds heavy reminders; the pink origami crane from the Bowl show; an ink sketch of the two of you in an intimate embrace that a fan handed you at KROQ; his headphones from the vocal booth. You have to enter year two with a clean slate, you must put this last tangible reminder away. Just as you lay the hoodie inside the drawer and close it, Anna is suddenly in the doorway, her eyes bright with fear, one hand clutching her flowered silk robe together and the other braced on the doorframe.

“Mike,” she calls, her voice frantic, upset. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay, Anna. I couldn’t sleep, I just… needed a minute in here.” You shrug and look around at the room you and he spent so much time in together, where his memory lingers on every space and in every corner, even if the physical reminders are all carefully and lovingly tucked away in the bottom drawer of your desk. You run a hand through your messy hair as you stand up. 

She crashes into the room and into your arms, letting the tears fall freely. “When I woke up and you were gone, I thought… Mike, you know what day it is, I thought… I thought...”

You run your thumbs over her cheeks as her eyes search your face, her petal-pink lips raised to you begging for reassurance.

“I won’t Anna, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve dragged myself through the worst of it, now it’s just forging ahead. Moving forward. And I have you to help me.” You pull her tight against your chest, swallowing hard. “I don’t feel that way anymore, I swear to you.”

Her chin presses his cross into your chest under your shirt, and you smile, breathing in her scent and kissing her hair. “I’m going to be okay, Anna, we’re going to be okay.”

Your eyes catch the movement of a shadow in the corner, a movement you know is impossible, because there is nothing in the room but you and Anna, still and silent as you hold each other. Curiosity gets the best of you, and you pull away, kissing her forehead as you move to the other side of the desk to peer at the vocal booth door.

Nestled in the thick pile of the carpet is one small, pink, origami crane.

You know for certain it wasn’t there before. You’ve been in and out of that room for months as you recorded your album. As you bend over to pick it up, your breath catches. It doesn’t look like one of yours. The wings aren’t precisely the same size and the creases aren’t exact. It’s smaller than any of the ones you made for the artwork downstairs, and you hold it gingerly between your thumb and forefinger, your heart fluttering. You may not believe in ghosts, but you believe in Chester’s ability to communicate with you still. It’s him, telling you he’s not going to go away, he’s not going to give up on you. It’s the sign you needed.

You take it and carefully perch it next to the computer monitor, then you turn to gather Anna back into your arms as your own lyrics swirl in your head, as you say goodnight to your ghosts and head back to your bed with your wife, and you hear him tell you the second year will be easier. Just when you thought you could only hear him in your dreams, there he is, and the relief floods over you. He’s not going away.

_And when the lights go down_   
_Is there something in the air?_   
_There but never there?_   
_The lights go down_   
_Holding every memory close_   
_Tonight is for our ghosts…_

**the end**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It felt fitting to bring this story to its conclusion before the 20th. The more I watch/listen to Mike in interviews, and having been given the gift of seeing him perform his new songs, the more I feel like he’s starting to make peace with his new reality. I started this when I came back from LA in June, and it’s taken longer to write than anything else I’ve published here. 
> 
> The release of Post Traumatic feels like a natural place to bring this story to a rest. Thank you to everyone who has read this group of stories. This was my first fanfiction, intended of course to be a stand alone, and it was my grieving story. I feel like I’m ready to move on from this place with Mike. Love you guys, and lots of hugs going in to the next week. xoxo

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i don't have to see you right now.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14023575) by [frostfall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostfall/pseuds/frostfall)




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